How To Achieve Product Market Fit For Your Product

Most often than not, many products don’t hit it on the first launch. 

This usually happens as a result of one significant reason: not achieving successful product-market fit.

The phrase ‘Product Market Fit’ was coined in 2007 by Marc Andreessen, an  American entrepreneur and investor.

What is product-market fit?

It is the degree to which a product satisfies market demand. 

In other words, it is a measure of how a product satisfies the needs of a target group of customers, solves their problems, and provides a unique value proposition.

Why is it important to achieve product-market fit?

As a startup, even if you have the best product, you cannot be successful if there is no market need for your product. When a product meets and satisfies the customer’s needs, it is more likely to be successful in terms of customer acquisition, sales, customer satisfaction, and business profitability.

So, a startup with a product that lacks product market fit, is less likely to build a successful business.

Achieving Product-market fit is also important because it helps startups identify if they are building a product that solves the real-life problems of their target customers.

How to find product-market fit

1. Research your target customer and target market: 

You might have done this in the past, but, it doesn’t hurt to look at customer personas, buying journeys, and market size once again.

This research will help you to analyze the customer’s needs, what they want, how they want it, the size of your market and so much more. 

2. Identify and Come up with a value hypothesis: 

What core value do you think your product will deliver to your target customers? 

Try to be as specific as possible when you craft your value hypothesis, as this is the assumption you’ll test to know if you are on the right track.

3. Test and Validate your value hypothesis:

You will need to test your value assumptions with real users by gathering customer feedback from them to know how your product is solving their problems. You need to be sure you are tracking and measuring the right data and asking the right questions as this will form the basis of your analysis in the next stop.

4. Analyze Your Data and Make Changes Accordingly

You will need to make relevant changes to your product or process based on what you find out from your test above. 

Whatever changes you want to make, ensure you make changes that users see as valuable.

5. Iterate and improve

As you make changes to your product, you should consider validating these changes by double-checking to know whether the changes are helping you meet your customers’ needs.

It is possible you won’t get it on your first attempt, so you need to continuously iterate, measure and improve until you are 100% sure you’ve achieved product market fit.

Conclusion

It often takes consistency and perseverance to identify the core value of your product that your market wants.

But know that the best products are those that solve their customers’ problems and the best way you can achieve product-market fit is to constantly improve your products to better meet the needs of your audience.