ACHIEVING

PRODUCT/MARKET FITRAMKUMAR NARAYANAN

Customer

ProductBusiness Model

Value Hypothesis

Product Market Fit

Customer

ProductBusiness Model

Are the dogs eating the dogfood?

Product Market Fit

Serendipity!

The Road To Product Market Fit Starts Earlier…

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

Outline the market you

want to play in

… Geo, Demo, Consumer, Enterprise,

Large, Small etc.

Define the bounding box

… BUT not too narrow – nor too

wide

Arrive at the addressable opportunity

… Evaluate constantly

Market situation analysis

… Porters 5 forces – the

popular framework

1 2 3 4

Is Market Big Enough To Be Interesting?

CUSTOMER DEFINITION

Get a deep view of your

customer

… Demog, Psychog, Socio-

Economic, Cultural etc.

Develop persona(s)

… NEEDS to become the lingua franca

Build a view of their life that is

material (to you)

… ILLUSTRATE the unmet

need or pain point

Understand the competitive environment

… WHAT else do they use and value

derived

Create a hypothesis on the business

model

… WHO is the decision maker?

1 2 3 4 5

Who Exactly Is Your Customer?

THE SOLUTION

Stack rank the unmet needs

• … PICK the top ones to focus on

Get in front of customers early

& often

• … Access, Simplicity, Usability, Validation etc.

Develop the value proposition (differentiation)

• … DEMONSTRATE why they need it (critically)

Understand the dependencies

• … THIS is a connected eco-system

Drive in-product insights

• … INSTRUMENT for insight and iterate

1 2 3 4 5

Is The Solution Likely To Meet

Expectations?

SUCCESS METRICS

How do you make

money?

Do they come back?

How is the first

experience?

How do they find

you?Acquisition

Activation

Retention

Revenue

SUCCESS METRICS

Define realistic goals for users and revenue

• … AVOID vanity metrics

Evaluate customer satisfaction constantly (NPS)

• … THIS is what matters

Validate a scalable business model

• … DRIVE revenue based on customer and channel

Measure against competition

• … EVEN if things appear extremely good

1 2

3 4

How Would We Know If Things Are

Working?

HERE IS A CLUE…

1. Customers are growing through word of mouth

and little marketing spend.

2. Usage of the solution is growing at a healthy

rate among the customer base.

3. Revenues are pouring in at a growing rate.

4. You need to staff up to keep with the growing

demand.

5. Press is beating on your door to learn more

about your offering.

6. Profitability is round the corner or already

achieved.

• Myth #1: Product market fit is always a

discrete, big bang event;

• Myth #2: It’s patently obvious when you

have product/market fit;

• Myth #3: Once you achieve

product/market fit, you can’t lose it;

• Myth #4: Once you have product/market

fit, you don’t have to sweat the

competition.

MYTHS OF PMF – BEN HOROWITZ

@ramnar

http://linkedin.com/in/raknar

Ramkumar Narayanan 2016 @ramnar