Product market fit is one of the biggest buzzwords in the startup world, but it's not always clearly defined. Let's go over what it is, and how to find it for your product.

What is Product-Market Fit?

Put simply: product market fit is a measure of where your product will fit in your industry and what its value will be. Knowing your product's market fit is a crucial part of figuring out your company's business plan, because in order to succeed you need to be in a good, thriving market with a gap that can be filled by your product. Knowing your product-market fit will tell you why customers should be interested in your product and give you a target audience to market towards.

How Can You Tell If You Have Product-Market Fit?

Though there aren't many specific quantifiable markers, it can be easy to tell when you haven't quite found your product-market fit yet.

One of the best ways to figure it out is to look at how your product is growing without any marketing. Are you still achieving good numbers via just word of mouth? If so, it's a good indicator that users are enjoying your product and finding it useful.

Another way to check to see if you've achieved product-market fit is to check your Net Promoter Score (NPS) to find out how much your users enjoy and share your product. According to experts, a score of 40 or higher is a good indicator of product-market fit.

Common Misconceptions

Now that you know what product-market fit is, let's discuss some of the most common misconceptions around the term.

You don't always need to be first to market

A lot of people will tell you it's important to be the first to do something or fill a need in your industry. But that's not true. It's far more important to be the first to find your product-market fit and successfully find your target customers.

Product market fit is an ongoing process

Finding your product's fit isn't a one-time thing; you'll have to continuously revise it and double-check to make sure you're still serving the needs of your audience. The tech industry is constantly changing and adapting, and you'll have to learn to adapt with it. Stay in touch with your customers to keep an eye on what they want and what they're looking for from you.

Finding your product-market fit will continue past launch

Steve Banks coined the term "premature scaling" to describe when products spend too much money on growth before developing PMF--one of the most common ways new startups die. Though you'll need to have an idea of what your product market fit should be before launch, but you'll need to keep an eye on things to make sure you've really found your niche and don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Understanding Product-Market Fit From Start to Finish

Let's break down how to understand and achieve the optimal product-market fit for your company. These details are also great to keep in a document to help guide your product journey.

Step 1: Determine your target customer base

First and foremost, you'll need to figure out who your target customer is. Who would use your product? Who would be most interested in it? Having a target audience in mind will help you figure out how to best match your users' needs.

The best way to do this is to do market research. Once your product is launched, you can further refine your target customer by looking at user stories and customer feedback.

Step 2: Identify customer needs

What common pain spots do you see in your industry? These areas represent gaps in your industry where other products have fallen short. Identifying and addressing these pain spots will help give your product an advantage over others and help you fill that gap.

Step 3: Define your value proposition

Countless startups launch every day, so you'll have to figure out how to make your product stand out from other new launches as well as established products. In order to do this, you'll need to have a clear idea of what gives you an advantage and makes your product more attractive. What makes your product special? Is it cheaper than other alternatives? Do you have any unique features or services? All of these are important questions to consider.

Step 4: Specify your Minimum Viable Product feature set

Sketch out the skeleton of your feature set; this will be your Minimum Viable Product (or MVP). This will include all the features you'll need to include on the first rollout of your product.

Step 5: Create your MVP prototype

From your MVP feature set, you can create the prototype for your product. This will need to be refined and added to as you get more feedback from users.

Step 6: Test your MVP with customers

Once your first prototype has been put together, it's time to test your MVP with customers. This is kind of like a beta test for your product, because it'll help you figure out if your product is working and if you have product-market fit--or what to do to get there.

How UserVitals Can Help

UserVitals is an all-in-one customer feedback management platform that helps your team collect, organize and analyze information from your users to help you on your product journey. This feedback comes from all over the internet, from customer portals to social media to platform integrations, and can be used to help you build your changelog and product roadmap.

While our product isn't directly marketed towards finding your product-market fit, we're great for gathering the information necessary to help find your fit and customize it to your customer's needs. Knowing how customers use your product and their likes and dislikes can help you know what to target and what you're doing right and wrong.

Learn more about UserVitals and how it can help you today.

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