How was your product-market fit journey?
Elif Duran
18 replies
Finding product-market fit is really crucial for a startup. How did you go through this journey, and what do you think made it easier for you to find product-market fit?
I would appreciate it if you could share your experiences ☀️
Replies
Frank Sondors@franksondors
Mailforge
We did 45 user interviews and accepted payments before writing any code.
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Mailforge
@dj_sanghera1 would take me too long. It's a very in-depth topic, but don't build stuff if you haven't received at least a few payings users upfront to truly test product market fit.
@franksondors no worries - but this sounds super relevant and I'd love to hear your thoughts, even if in bullet point form. I can understand presale with hardware type things, but for a saas product, how do you pre-sell before the person can even use the platform!?
Mailforge
@dj_sanghera1 Effective charge data becomes from the moment the user has access to the product. It's just a bit of accounting. Ultimately you're buying to have future access to the product.
Clipara
I remember reading an excellent Lenny's newsletter about how to know when you're on to something. The key one that stood out for me was inbound paying interest, have you had a customer that contacts you out the blue and pays for the product. We've been lucky enough at Clipara to have some inbound paying customers but getting there was a good journey of working with our launch partners and developing the product with their needs and feedback. I don't think you can ever talk to users enough!
Talking about a case in point from my experience, achieving PMF was primarily about zeroing in on the right "market." We had started with a B2B (hire-tech) product I thought would cater to most. For about a year, we tried various employee-size categories. No luck. Eventually, we narrowed it down to a small audience with specific, urgent preferences. That aligned with our strengths. We snagged a lighthouse client, Rippling, through a compelling deal + existing relationship. They were open to partnering. That win gave us the authority to engage our target audience successfully.
We're in the process, but in my previous projects, figuring out if the product market fit was pretty easy. Usually, this is expressed when customers begin to recommend you to their friends and leave positive reviews.
Talking with every custumer :)
BeforeSunset AI
@janusz_mirowski What did you do afterwards?
@diana_iun Changed a lot in marketing communication because our costumers are different that we were thinking :).
Finding product-market fit is indeed a critical challenge for startups. While I'm not a startup myself, I can share some general advice and insights on how startups typically go through this journey and what factors can make it easier:
Deep Market Research: Start by thoroughly understanding your target market. Identify pain points, needs, and desires of your potential customers of Hafsa PC. Conduct surveys, interviews, and gather data to gain insights into their preferences and behaviors.
Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Develop a basic version of your product or service that addresses the core problem you've identified. This allows you to test your concept with real users and get valuable feedback without investing too much time or resources.
Iterate Based on Feedback: Once your MVP is in the hands of users, listen to their feedback and iterate on your product. Be open to making changes and improvements based on what you learn from user interactions and data analytics.
AppyHigh Prime
Custom Feedback and Adaption. :))
I just started by building my landing page: https://chatpilot.earlybird.rocks/
It's definitely a bumpy ride! How do you know when it's over? 😅😅