Method category: Evaluative product experiment

How to Use This in GLIDR

The Product/Market Fit Survey is a single-question survey that helps you figure out if you've reached product-market fit with a specific segment of your users.

In GLIDR, you can set up this survey and track it in an Experiment. Set your success metric to match the recommended value -- 40% or more say "very disappointed" -- and in the Run phase, add Evidence - Other for the survey itself. You can attach the raw data plus any qualitative responses you get if you asked an open-ended follow-up question. Finally, in Analyze, see if you hit the target and then figure out how to tweak your product, market, or both.

Learn more about each of those aspects of GLIDR:

Article excerpted from The Real Startup Book
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The Product/Market Fit (PMF) survey specifically asks the customer, “How would you feel if you could no longer use [this product]?” with a multiple choice response. The survey is often used as a proxy metric for PMF. If 40 percent or more customers answer they would be “very disappointed” without the product then it is assumed the product is ready for marketing to the entire segment that answers that way.

"Product-market fit" is a term originally coined by serial entrepreneur and VC Marc Andreessen in his epic post "The Only Thing that Matters." In short, it refers to being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market. If you really have it, typically you will be stretched to the limit with resources in order to deliver the product.

Having achieved product/market fit, you can safely say that you have fully proven the value hypothesis, where the value hypothesis is the key assumption that underlies why a customer is likely to use your product. Andy Rachleff of Wealthfront argues that you should achieve PMF before searching for venture money.

Product/market fit is also a proxy for customer excitement. Customers recommend you more frequently if you've achieved it.

This survey technique gives you a quantitative measure of whether you've achieved PMF.

Sean Ellis recommends sending the PMF survey question to people who have:

Setup form on website: .5-1 day

or

Prepare a longer survey containing the question below: 2-3 days (see closed-ended survey for more details)

How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?

3. Send the survey using any of the following: Email, Survey.io, Typeform, Google Forms, Intercom

If over 40 percent of your users are saying that they would be “very disappointed” without your product, you are building a “must have” product for your initial customers. You can also include an open-ended follow up question to understand why the user answered this way.

Look for differences in qualitative responses between very disappointed and somewhat disappointed for extra clues. Most likely, either product or market segment need to be improved.