About the Episode

In this episode, Elijah Eilert sits down with Étienne Garbugli. Étienne, the CEO of Sliced, veteran founder, and author of several books, shares his insights.

The conversation centers around Étienne’s most recent book, Find Your Market. The book explores how to effectively find Product/Market Fit when innovations are already built or at least partially developed without having factored in the market need properly. Most innovators understand the need for research and experimentation before committing significant resources to but in reality, many organisations, Research and Development departments, and especially universities all too often do not adhere to it. 

Topics and Insights

[01:00] Question 1: What is Innovation?

• Étienne kicks off by reframing how we should think about innovation—not just products, but improvements in services, processes, and distribution. He makes a strong case for continuous iteration as the key to staying relevant in today’s hyper-competitive landscape.

[02:30] – Question 2: How Should Innovation Be Measured?

• Étienne discusses different approaches to measuring innovation, from immediate goals (Horizon 1) to long-term, high-uncertainty efforts. He shares his perspective on why understanding progress in increments is key, especially when navigating high-risk innovation projects.

[05:00] – Question 3: What is the Biggest Barrier to Innovation?

• Elijah and Étienne explore a major, yet often overlooked, barrier to innovation—career progression. In organisations, those who get promoted are often seen as people who make the “right” decisions. This clashes with the exploratory and uncertain nature of genuine innovation, which frequently involves taking risks and failing.

[12:30] – Finding Your Market

• A significant portion of the conversation focuses on Étienne’s book, Find Your Market: Discover and Win Your Product’s Best Market Opportunity. He walks listeners through his bottom-up approach to identifying markets—starting from precise, actionable customer segments and expanding outward—contrasted against traditional top-down TAM analysis. Elijah and Étienne jokingly refer to it as “Lean Startup, but backwards,” emphasising how companies with an existing product can work backward to find Product/Market-Fit but in a lean way.

[18:00] – Innovation Metrics and Strategy Alignment

• They discuss how to align innovation metrics with broader business strategy. Measuring learning outcomes and value creation through insights—rather than just focusing on short-term financial gains. Étienne also shares how even seasoned entrepreneurs often realise their understanding of markets evolves significantly over time.

[36:30] – Segmenting Effectively with Slice

• Étienne explains how his company, Sliced helps companies break down broader target audiences into smaller, more actionable segments. This process enables companies to better understand where their true market opportunities lie.

[45:06] – Strategic Choices: Internal vs. Acquisition

• The conversation closes with an insightful exploration of how organisations decide between building innovations internally or acquiring them. Étienne compares these paths, drawing from examples like Atlassian and Google, and offers his thoughts on which makes sense depending on the broader innovation thesis.

About the Guest

Étienne is the CEO of Sliced, a consulting firm that helps growing tech companies find the best customers for their products.

He is also a three-time startup founder (Highlights, Flagback, and HireVoice), a six-time entrepreneur, and a customer research expert.

In 2014, Étienne published the first edition of Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want. The Lean B2B Methodology has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators worldwide build successful businesses. In 2020 he published Find Your Market, The SaaS Email Marketing Playbook, and Solving Product.

His presentation 26 Time Management Hacks I Wish I’d Known at 20 was viewed by more than 32 million people.

For more about Étienne and his work, visit Étienne’s Website.