Shortcut to product market fit
PMF comes from targeting of marketing
PMF comes from targeting of marketing
There is no shortcut to product-market fit. It only comes with the good old customer research. Without consumer insights, businesses are gambling to achieve the product-market fit.
Before product-market fit, businesses have to find:
Potential value of the market.
Actual population of the market.
Current market share of the business.
Product-market fit
Without the market research or knowing the users, businesses are relying on guesswork and luck. A product may fit a market, but the value of the market may be small with the small population and high market share.
Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, wrote:
I think most businesses that fail do it because they don’t give customers what they want.
In nearly every failed startup, the real problem was that customers didn’t want the product. For most, the cause of death is listed as “ran out of funding,” but that’s only the immediate cause.
he only way to make something customers want is to get a prototype in front of them and refine it based on their reactions.
Paul Graham warns businesses of the Hail Marry approach, where they develop the brand or the product for years, and do not care to know what customers want. Marketing Mini MBA professor Mark Ritson wrote, “Smaller companies, for example, without the resources or scale of a Mars would do well to start by taking a smaller, segmented bite off the marketing apple and gradually building their presence.”
Basic market research such as speaking with the customers help you to understand the customers and the size. Secondary research can help you ascertain the size of the market and the brand’s market share. Spending time with the customers at the point of purchase, consumption, and discussion will help you understand their behaviour with regard to the product.
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