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Understanding Product-Market Fit

The Golden Rule For Entrepreneurs

“When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins. When a lousy team meets a great market, market wins. When a great team meets a great market, something special happens.” - Andy Rachleff (Entrepreneur, coined the phrase ‘product-market fit’)

You can’t build a successful business until you have developed a sustainable model of attracting potential users and converting them to active consumers. Product-market fit (PMF) is the golden rule to follow when developing your business. Why? PMF is the degree to which a product or service fulfills an identifiable and available market demand.


What happens once you achieve product-market fit? Growth! This is known as market disruption, which occurs when either your product or service addresses a brand new market, or when it offers a better and more convenient alternative to the competition.

Looking to achieve product-market fit or identify the viability of your innovative idea? Master the following:


Identify & Understand Your Consumer


Sometimes, you stumble into the perfect product-market fit. However, for most entrepreneurs and startups, identifying your product-market fit can be challenging and requires a deep understanding of your consumer. PMF emerges from an intensive research phase during which you meet potential consumers and early adopters (your market) to pitch your product or service, gather feedback, and assess interest (fit).

If you lack clear understanding of your shopper, you won’t attain optimal product-market fit. How do you develop this?

  • Analyze your competition

  • Meet with early adopters

  • Explore trade shows and new outlets

  • Find an industry-specific mentor


Leverage Your Value Proposition


When product-market fit isn’t right, growth isn’t happening. Why? Because your customer isn’t realizing the value of your product or service in its current form.

Understanding the pain point(s) faced by a potential consumer allows you to better serve them through building trust, credibility and a game-changing product designed to fit their needs. While the concept behind your new venture is probably feature packed with an objective of offering an all-in-one solution, you need to sharpen your focus. If your audience has a specific pain point that’s been previously ignored by others, concentrating on that one distinct problem will help you outmatch the competition. Plus, any additional features may be offered later which will bolster both product use and consumer loyalty.


Measuring Your Product-Market Fit


Can you measure product-market fit? How do you know if you are close, or have achieved it? While there are no specific metrics to follow, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are your consumers recommending your product or service to friends, family and colleagues?

  • Are your consumers positively reviewing your product or service?

  • Would your consumer feel lost if your product or service was no longer available or unusable?

  • Are customers leaving your platform? Or how long are they remaining active with your product or service?

If you can answer yes to questions one through three, you have likely achieved or are close to maximizing your product-market fit. However, if your customers are not engaging or are leaving your platform, you have not achieved PMF. When PMF is achieved you will experience tremendous growth in both sales and customer retention.


Trust In Troy Web Consulting


In an effort to achieve product-market fit establish partnerships, especially with developers that will help you not only transform your idea into reality, but also be able to offer you key insights based upon their unique experiences.


At Troy Web Consulting, we take pride in partnering with startups and small businesses on their journey to success. In fact, we’re a proud supporter of StartUp Tech Valley, Startup Weekend and NSF iCorp, all organizations which have helped place many Capital Region businesses on the map! Troy Web Consulting is here to help you attain your product-market fit. How? Our incredible team. We have a Data Scientist who gathers and analyzes the right information to help you achieve PMF. Our team of experts have learned a lot throughout the past 15 years, and we’re committed to providing our clients with the best technological solutions available.

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