Product market fit

What is product market fit? 50% of startups fail because of a lack of product-market fit.

What is product-market fit?

When a product solves a customer’s pain point and adds the required value, it has achieved the product-market fit. In simple terms, the product is benefiting the customers to a level where they are ready to pay for it.

In most cases, startups build products that are not required for the market or the market is not yet ready for adoption, and hence fail.

How to achieve the product-market fit?

By identifying the pain points of a customer segment, defining the value proposition & testing it with iterative minimum viable products (MVPs), the product-market fit can be achieved.

This is usually an iterative process with feedback from customers. If one solution doesn’t work, change the solution. If the customer’s pain point is not a genuine one, work on another problem. The faster you move on, the more the chances to succeed.

The basics behind this are not to remain attached to your idea and to be flexible to provide value to customers until you hit a target!

How to identify product-market fit?

After implementation of the minimum viable product, customers willing to use it actively at first is an initial sign of being in the right direction. Some signs of getting a strong product market fit are – 

1. Willingness to pay, 
2. Active usage of the MVP
3. Active feedback
4. A smaller number of customers churned
5. Increased interest from other customers