Product-market fit is just retention
The mythical product-market fit is just retention.
Founders dream about PMF. Startup life gets split into "pre" and "post". But ask anyone to define it and you get Justice Potter Stewart on obscenity: "I know it when I see it."
Feeling it isn't a metric
Marc Andreessen did us a disservice here. In his famous 2007 essay he wrote that "you can always feel product/market fit when it's happening" -- customers buy as fast as you can make the product, usage grows as fast as you can add servers.
Great prose, but there are no metrics in it. So you're stuck with a yes or no: if you don't feel it, you don't have it. And you have no idea what to look at next.
Retention is
The best definition I've found is from Mark Roberge, the founding CRO of HubSpot, in The Science of Scaling: "Customer retention is the best statistical representation of product-market-fit."
If customers keep coming back, your product is part of their routine. Then they'll pay, and when the moment comes, they'll recommend you.
How we do it at Alphie
- Find what sells to your chosen audience. Our first idea, a personal assistant for founders, didn't 😅
- Once it sells, look for retention. Which features do customers actually use? Which customers come back every day, and how are they different from the ones who don't?
- Double down on those. Then figure out pricing.
Stop waiting to feel it. Measure who comes back.
Sources
- Marc Andreessen, The only thing that matters: https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html
- Mark Roberge, The Science of Scaling: https://www.stage2.capital/science-of-scaling
Yura Riphyak
Yura is building the future of intelligent GTM at Alphie. Previously, he co-founded YouTeam (YC W18, acquired by Toptal) and Hubbub.fm.
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