The state when a product satisfies strong market demand, evidenced by organic growth and retention. A critical milestone for startups that can be lost and must be recaptured as markets evolve.
Product-Market Fit
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The state when a product satisfies strong market demand, evidenced by organic growth and retention. A critical milestone for startups that can be lost and must be recaptured as markets evolve.
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Which concepts connect to Product-Market Fit, and why?Which podcast guests discuss Product-Market Fit? Give examples.How can I apply Product-Market Fit? Use examples from the podcast.Transcript Mentions
...ll doing what I'm doing is because I still want to learn. If there are better patterns out there that you're seeing, particularly around how to build products, would love to know if there are other ways people think about finding product market fit. Because that's such an elusive thing that I just keep thinking a lot...
olve all my problems. So responsive. This connects a common sign of product market fit, which is when people are complaining about the thing that means they actually care enough to complain and that's a really good sign if they're compl...
sually, whoever was the product leader, whether it was the founder or maybe somebody who was a little bit more junior. In those phases at the beginning, finding product market fit, trying to g...
...ren't really SaaS, like banks, a lot of banks. A lot, a lot of banks. But your pharmaceutical companies, and all these other ones too, kind of set up product management for the first time. So I've seen the whole gamut, from super software-focused teams to companies that are still just figuring out software. And it's ...
here's a line that this venture capitalist, whose name I will not mention, said, which was that product market fit is a sort of thing where you absolutely know it when you see it, and therefore if you don't absolutely know it, you don't have it. (00:43:17): And t...
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The state when a product satisfies strong market demand, evidenced by organic growth and retention. A critical milestone for startups that can be lost and must be recaptured as markets evolve.
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Breaking down complex problems into fundamental truths and reasoning from there
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Core differentiator of Amazon focusing on customer needs above all else
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Key indicator of product success - cohorted retention shows if users continue using the product over time
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
Designing experiments to fail conclusively to maximize learning
Direct connection to Product-Market Fit
The percentage of users who take a desired action after signing up for a product.
Connected through: Product management theater | Marty Cagan (Silicon Valley Product Group)
Connected through: Building a long and meaningful career | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google)
Connected through: Building Wiz: the fastest-growing startup in history | Raaz Herzberg (CMO and VP Product Strategy)
Connected through: Lessons from Atlassian | Megan Cook (Head of Product, Jira)
Connected through: Product management theater | Marty Cagan (Silicon Valley Product Group); Lessons from Atlassian | Megan Cook (Head of Product, Jira)
"Inspired" by Marty Cagan is highly recommended for its deep exploration of product management and innovation, emphasizing the importance of creating products that truly meet user needs. The book underscores the value of disagreeable yet effective leadership traits, showing how founders can thrive by challenging conventional wisdom while maintaining a commitment to high standards.
Connected through: Lessons from Atlassian | Megan Cook (Head of Product, Jira)
"Scaling People" by Claire Hughes Johnson is highly recommended for its practical and tactical insights into effective management and leadership. The book serves as a valuable reference for addressing everyday challenges in scaling teams, offering templates and frameworks that can be immediately implemented by leaders at all levels.
Connected through: Taxi mafias, cash vaults & 100% MoM growth: The story of SEA’s biggest startup | Kevin Aluwi (Gojek)
Objectives and Key Results system for goal setting that can replicate across company levels
Connected through: Product management theater | Marty Cagan (Silicon Valley Product Group)
Framework with 20 principles covering how to decide what to work on, how to solve problems, and how to build and deploy
Connected through: Lessons from Atlassian | Megan Cook (Head of Product, Jira)
A staged approach to developing new products at Atlassian.
Podcast excerpts and source summaries from the explorer. Entries marked “Source summary” are summaries, not transcript quotations.
Manik Gupta · 01:03:28
...ll doing what I'm doing is because I still want to learn. If there are better patterns out there that you're seeing, particularly around how to build products, would love to know if there are other ways people think about finding product market fit. Because that's such an elusive thing that I just keep thinking a lot...
Lenny Rachitsky · 00:19:01
olve all my problems. So responsive. This connects a common sign of product market fit, which is when people are complaining about the thing that means they actually care enough to complain and that's a really good sign if they're compl...
Melissa Perri · 09:57
sually, whoever was the product leader, whether it was the founder or maybe somebody who was a little bit more junior. In those phases at the beginning, finding product market fit, trying to g...
Melissa Perri · 06:44
...ren't really SaaS, like banks, a lot of banks. A lot, a lot of banks. But your pharmaceutical companies, and all these other ones too, kind of set up product management for the first time. So I've seen the whole gamut, from super software-focused teams to companies that are still just figuring out software. And it's ...
Matt MacInnis · 00:42:59
here's a line that this venture capitalist, whose name I will not mention, said, which was that product market fit is a sort of thing where you absolutely know it when you see it, and therefore if you don't absolutely know it, you don't have it. (00:43:17): And t...
Elena Verna · 01:05:39
It's like nobody's future is bulletproof yet. And 10 years ago, if you asked me if a $200 million company was at risk in losing product-market fit in the next three months if it's experiencing 10% month-over-month growth, I would've said, "You're crazy." And now that's the reality that we live in. And I don't know, it's fascinating to world in. What a time to be alive.
Grant Lee · 01:33:28
... some initial users and having that organic growth. And I think there's maybe two checkpoints of thinking about whether or not you feel like you have product market fit. I think one checkpoint is organic growth. The second is are people willing to pay for the product? And I think if you pass both those, you feel like...
Eoghan McCabe · 00:33:46
...and wanted to work as hard as the rest of us and work in a mature and engaged in excited way, that took a little longer time. There's such a thing as product market fit. There's a thing as founder market fit, there's a thing as founder, product market fit. That's how you're doing it right, but there's also such a thi...
Dan Shipper · 01:29:30
...businesses don't follow the same pattern as tech startups, because if you're a media business and you are a founder who then hires people to make the product, which is right, if you have product market fit before, you lose it, and maybe you hire people that are good writers, but that's hard. It's total opposite patte...
Krithika Shankarraman · 00:11:35
...ation, how likely is it that you close them? How likely is it that you win that deal?" (00:12:20): That usually tells you very astutely, do you have product market fit? Once you're already in the room and people are converting, you have found that problem statement that is critical to them that is hurting them the m...
Rahul Vohra · 00:53:12
he core ideas are still weird enough that I'll start there. Which is number one, you can measure product market fit. Number two, you can optimize product market fit. Number three, you can systematically, even numerically increase product market fit. And number four...
Uri Levine · 00:30:17
...is my business model and so forth. So you think about everything, but you actually need to execute only one thing. Now this one thing is figuring out product market fit. It's not one thing, right? Wait a minute. You also need to build an organization and you want that organization to be something that you really like...
Uri Levine · 00:57:32
...it is different. Because the other alternative is basically say, "Wait a minute, all of my underlining assumptions have gone, they are wrong." I lost product market fit. The value proposition that I had is wrong or is no longer valid or no longer relevant. And therefore I need to start from scratch. Do I really have ...
Elena Verna · 00:10:35
And there's two specific reasons that I incur on, which is before you have growth team, before you would think about growth team first you need to have solid PMF, product market fit, means that you have a solution to a problem and you have customers not only coming in and solving that problem with your solution, but they're also retaining and staying with you. There is a good retention. You can use channel score of how many people would say that they cannot live without your product as well, but there's some sort of PMF. And then number two, you have data growth cannot function without data. If you have 10 users or 10 customers, that's not data, that's a G-sheet with your customers and you don't need a growth team for that. Until you have data that you can actually do an analysis and you can create hypotheses on and you can start applying experimentation, don't even think about growth team.
Lenny Rachitsky · 01:43:53
nd it makes me think about, as you're talking, people think about product market fit and something, a lesson from this journey is just like product market fit is not a binary. You will have it now. You've got it and you have it and wi...
Raaz Herzberg · 00:24:11
...oming to Wiz was following Assaf and Ynon in the founding team. And two and a half years into Wiz, at that time, Wiz was already, it was a very clear product market fit. (00:24:50): Our revenues were already there. We had a sales team that was fully functioning, but at that point at Wiz, we felt marketing was still ...
Lenny Rachitsky · 00:28:17
...his activation metric that people talk about, because right now everyone's like, "Yeah, of course retention is what you need to focus on. That's what product-market fit is." I think right now that's what everyone knows. I love that you guys basically figured that out, was one of the first times of, "Here's how we und...
Tamar Yehoshua · 00:11:45
...'t matter for the success of the company. But then there are some that really matter. So what are the things that really matter? We always talk about product market fit. Nobody really knows what product market fit is. Everybody has a different explanation, but it means people want to use your product. That they're cl...
Sean Ellis · 00:03:19
t's a simple question that helps you figure out, does anyone consider your product a must-have, or ideally, who and how many people consider it, but ultimately it's about trying to figure out is your product a must-have, which could be equated...
Lenny Rachitsky · 00:30:33
ome people use paid ads to drive early growth to bring customers, to help them figure out what to build kind of pre-product market fit growth. Is that something you recommend? Is that something you'd advise against? Is that strategy that you've seen work?
Jeff Weinstein · 00:16:25
... immediately." We heard a couple comments from them, it was little murmurs. And I didn't realize at the time that was the signal that we did not have product market fit. And I ended up wasting many more years on that project. And wasting is a big word. We built amazing software, people liked it, we were able to sell ...
Lenny Rachitsky · 00:42:40
...e you're just trying stuff, you're learning, seeing things people haven't tried. Mike Maples, Jr. (00:42:49): That's right, and in the early days of product market fit, I like to say we want to answer a very simple but profound question. What can we uniquely offer that people are desperate for? And if we have an ins...
Jag Duggal · 00:28:30
...l use many of them, but we don't standardize or find one that dramatically changes our life beyond the mindset of we are going to make sure that this product has product market fit before we scale it. One of the things I've seen throughout my career as a product manager and CPO, we live with it today at Nubank every ...
Lenny Rachitsky · 00:36:56
think you can. So I asked him what is often the most common reason a startup fails? And his answer was they don't talk to customers, they don't find product market fit. They nothing else matters if they can't do that. And so his advice is talk to customers more often. So two questions here. First of all, just is the...
Todd Jackson · 00:17:03
o the framework starts with a very simple idea that is product-market fit is not a one-size-fits-all thing, and it doesn't just happen overnight. And for B2B companies, specifically, it does tend to follow a repeatable patt...
Marty Cagan · 01:15:53
Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm one of the people that tries to discourage them from hiring product managers too soon because a lot of them make the mistake of hiring them too soon. Now, realize what we're talking about here, again, the whole discussion we've had, this is other layer to, I'm talking about a real product manager. If they're using them as project manager, which a lot of times they are, well, I would tell them they're overpaying, but okay, you can get some help for project management. That's not a good use of the CEO's time. But if they're a real product manager and they're worried about value and viability, that is the founder's job. So the founder should be doing that and needs to be doing that, and it usually causes conflict if they bring in a real product manager too soon. It's too many cooks in the kitchen.
John Zeratsky · 01:29:07
...typically you've raised a certain amount of money which buys you a certain amount of runway. You have a certain amount of time to prove that you have product market fit to prove that the thing that you're making is the right thing for some customers. And so the faster you can do that, the more quickly you can find ou...
John Zeratsky · 00:43:38
...r two things that your customers really care about and that you can be radically better at, it's going to improve your chances of winning and finding product market fit. (00:44:22): And we find that going through this process where you're not just thinking about one differentiator at a time or you're not trying to w...
And the second thing is just give them freedom to move really fast and solve those problems in a different way. So there are different expectations. They don't necessarily need to be a part of that process that I was talking about before. This team should just be running hard to prove whether or not the idea's going to work and whether there's product market fit. · 00:56:59
...t's got to scale. There are all these things that users inherently expect from something like that. But for something small like this, we are proving product market fit. You don't need to think about that initially. So you've got to hold this to a different standard, otherwise you're just going to slow them down way ...
Tom Conrad · 01:06:19
...th journey. And Mike Maser founded the company four and a half years ago, and he and I were talking in this interval about my own experience with the product. I was just giving him product feedback and so forth, and he was telling me a little bit about his own entrepreneurial journey. And somewhere in the conversatio...
Eric Ries · 01:13:49
...now if I have product market fit." Well, the fact that you have time to call me and ask me this question already tells me the answer. If you have had product-market fit you would not have time for this. When it's working there's no time for naval gazing, there's no time for ... If you've never lived through a company...
Paul Adams · 01:05:33
o yeah, with product market fit, pretty basic, well understood, very important. The way I describe product market fit is, you've got to build the right product for the right market....
Lenny · 01:18:53
think this is such a good way and smart way of thinking about product market fit. A lot of people see product market fit as this binary, "I have it or I don't," and, "When am I going to really feel product market fit?" What you're...
Lane Shackleton · 00:16:38
aybe it's helpful to start with a little higher level context on the unifying thesis. I think the unifying thesis is the core job of a product person in general is to turn ambiguity into clarity. And if you think about the job of a product leader or a product manager, everything is ambiguous all the...
Lenny · 01:10:40
long those lines, I had this note that you had this quote around product market fit and it's this hot take that product market fit is a very dangerous idea. I'd love for you to speak to that, because I think most people are in the op...
Lenny · 00:23:02
hat story of the potential customer pulling the laptop from Dylan is such a good metaphor for product market fit, which people describe as you feel pull. Someone's literally pulling it from your hands. You talked about metrics that you maybe could share. What co...
Noah Weiss · 00:51:08
hat's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. I think of product market fit is almost like you keep stacking these S-curves where you get product market fit in a small group and then you suddenly reach exponential growth beca...
Lenny · 00:11:11
n terms of spark with a product. Right now on product market fit, now how do you know if you have product market fit? And a lot of it often comes down to there's a emotional reaction from some...
Melissa Tan · 00:58:44
get this question a lot as well. I'd say initially when a company's starting out, the goal is getting to product market fit and figuring out who their ideal customer profile is, like their ICP. And at this point, I think everyone at the company should be thinking about gro...
Luc Levesque · 00:18:47
... harder to find really good ones than it is to time it. But generally speaking, I would say you don't want to focus too much on growth until you have product market fit. So make sure you have a product that users love that's either showing strong signs of retention or has some good loop that you can see that you can ...
Nikhyl Singhal · 00:17:07
...ulling back, taking their capital back, companies essentially saying, "Hey, we're capitalized. We're a scaled ocean liner, and now we need to go find product market fit." But doing that with 300 people and expectations of hitting a multi-billion dollar valuation just isn't going to happen. So that's the reason why I'...
Casey Winters · 29:54
...e concept is user expectations just continue to go up every day in terms of their expectations on user experience, on the value that they expect your product to provide, but also the competitive landscape in the market continues to get better. Yeah, if you're not continually pushing to make your product better, your ...
Kevin Aluwi · 00:52:24
...olds almost 10% of the world's population. But beyond the macro picture, I think also we've experienced a pretty unique level of pace of adoption for products with great product market fit. So products with great product market fit grow tremendously fast in this part of the world. And in 2015, for example, when we la...
Lenny · 00:52:48
...n new priorities will come up and you don't really have time to have a discussion about company strategy. Company strategy also assumes that you have product market fit because you already have something that's working. If you don't have that, then getting to people wanting your product, that is your strategy. You do...
Chris Hutchins · 00:09:29
...execute on all the features, there was a lot of prototype UI testing. I think Andy, he's legendary. If anyone listening to this, wants to learn about product market fit, Andy is your guy. I believe he coined the term, he teaches the class at Stanford. And the lesson was really find something people are reaching over ...
Adam Grenier · 00:40:33
...that are like, "How should we adjust our marketing with the economic changes and things like that?" I was like, "Start by assuming you no longer have product market fit, because you had product market fit in a different market. It's a different market now, so you have to start over."
Yuriy Timen · 00:49:45
rom landing on site to a free user at scale. Earlier stage, you have strong product market fit with some kind of small audience segment that conversion can be 40 to 50%, but as you go broader, it'll probably asymptote at like 25, 30%. What abou...
Casey Winters · 00:31:26
...t you just can't stay deep in anymore. I built this chart on, or I guess I should say table on the different phases of a startup. When you're finding product-market fit, everything goes through the founders. You cannot outsource that. (00:32:08): Then when you start scaling the company because you found product-mark...
Source summary
Source summary: Establish product-market fit before growth hiring.