Finding product-market fit
Product-market fit is a moving target, not a finish line. A series on user research, misleading early metrics, and knowing when fit has actually arrived.
Product-market fit is a moving target, not a finish line
Founders talk about product-market fit as a milestone to cross once. In practice, it behaves more like a condition that has to be maintained, not achieved.
Talking to users before you have anything to show them
Founders often wait for a prototype before talking to potential users. Some of the most useful conversations happen earlier, with nothing to show at all.
Why most early metrics measure the wrong thing
Signups and downloads feel like progress and often say very little about whether a product is actually solving anyone’s problem yet.
The pivot that looks like failure from the outside
A well-timed pivot often gets read publicly as a company admitting defeat. Internally, it frequently looks like the opposite: a team finally facing reality.
Copying a competitor’s roadmap solves the wrong problem
Matching a competitor feature for feature feels like due diligence. It usually answers a question nobody asked instead of the one that actually matters.
When a small, loud user base fools a whole team
A handful of vocal, enthusiastic early users can convince a team that fit exists broadly, when the enthusiasm may not extend past that small, unusual group.
The feature that ships and changes nothing
A shipped feature with no measurable effect on retention or growth is a common, quiet failure mode that rarely gets discussed as openly as it should.
Product-market fit doesn’t arrive as one clean number
Product-market fit doesn’t arrive as one clean number. It shows up as a handful of quieter signals — and only together do they actually mean something.
