What metrics do you use to validate product-market fit?
Rachel E. Allen
5 replies
Hey everyone! Product-market fit comes up in so many conversations, but I've noticed that it's a bit self proclaimed.
Conversations usually go like this:
>>"I got the customers that I projected on month x therefore I've achieved product market fit." - Yea, but how much did you spend to get them? What % of the market is using your product?
>>"I didn't get $y in sales yet so I'm still trying to find my product-market fit." - Ok, but is that just a problem with your projections? Do your customers love your product?
>>"Z of my customers would promote my product so I have product-market fit." - Is Z = sample set of 1? Moms don't count.
Anyways, I'm curious if any of you have metrics you use. How do you come up with them?
P.S. I'm specifically interested in product-market fit metrics for marketplaces.
Replies
Monil Shah@monil_shah2
Those are some awesome examples! I don't think there is a right way to validate it, and it depends (like the examples you posted reflect) on the use case. That said, here's what we do (our product is a customer journey analytics platform):
1) We use it ourselves for client work. For us this is big. If we cannot use it/ hate it that's an indication that something needs to change.
2) However, given that we've built our product ourselves, there's always going to be some uninentioned empathy attached to it and assumptions. This is where putting your product out in the market comes in. Extremely vulnerable, but so valuable! Just publish it on platforms like product hunt and ask people what they think.
As the market evolves, so should your product :-)!.
Good luck.
Here's us: https://www.bluegreenanalytics.c...
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@monil_shah2 Hey! Thanks for the reply. Also, cool product - I like the visual mapping. Are there any other major differences in your product than what Google analytics offers? Also, you embed a pixel to track the conversions?
@rachel_e_allen
Thanks for taking a look, Rachel! Pixels are not needed for conversion points—we have one tracking script, like most analytics tools, and you define conversion points in the app in real time. Think about it like getting directions on Waze or Google Maps.. except it’s for your website and conversion points are your destination.
Google Analytics is a good tool for learning things about your site in general, but it’s not the friendliest and it lacks, in our opinion, the ability to help people understand customer journeys. That’s where we’re different. Questions we answer: How are visitors from this paid search campaign getting to our sign up complete page? What paths are visitors taking from landing page X to conversion point Y? Where are people going after our homepage?
We just launched a new, free tier if you’d like to try it out for yourself. We’d love to have you!
Rachel this is a good observation, There are so many times founders claim product-market fit to their detriment. I guess what's more important is to show that a small group of users love your product. and that this group can be potentially large. Instead of claiming product-market fit. I ran a marketplace a few years ago and one good metric could be repeat purchases.
