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Hiten Shah
@hnshah
, 15 tweets, 23 min read Read on Twitter
Product/market fit (PMF) is the #1 topic on most startup people’s minds, especially in the early days.

This thread will have as much information about it as possible and will be continuously updated.
First things first...

What is product/market fit (PMF)?

“Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.” @pmarca

This @holloway guide is a good place to start.

holloway.com/s/rvc-fundamen…
How do you measure product/market fit?

- Word of mouth and referrals
- Quantitatively via retention
- Qualitatively via surveys
- Unit economics and profitability
- Other forms of “fit”

Not in any particular order.
In the earliest days of a product, word of mouth is the key indicator of product/market fit (PMF).

Why?

Because if after people experience your product, they tell others about it (positively) it means that they found it valuable enough to share.

You have fit with those people.
To use word of mouth as a product/market fit signal it has to be a result of people recommending a product without being prompted to do it.

For example, here is a list of products that people would recommend to a friend:
Retention is the single biggest quantitative indicator of product/market fit (PMF).

Strong retention is required for product/market fit.

@jonathanhsu of @tribecap wrote the one and only how to guide on measuring PMF quantitatively...

tribecap.co/a-quantitative…
@jonathanhsu @tribecap Want to know why Retention is so important for a product?

And all the benefits you get from it related to product/market fit?

@bbalfour has you covered in this article: reforge.com/blog/growth-me…
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour Since @seanellis introduced his key survey question for gauging product/market fit in 2009, there is a resurgence of the methodology every few years.

Here's his original explanation of how to measure product/market fit including the 40% threshold: startup-marketing.com/using-survey-i…
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour @SeanEllis More recently @rahulvohra of @superhuman explained how they measure product/market fit qualitatively using @seanellis' survey methodology in this @firstround review article: firstround.com/review/how-sup…

@lpolovets shares how fast it's been spreading these days
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour @SeanEllis @rahulvohra @Superhuman @firstround @lpolovets In 2015 I surveyed 731 @SlackHQ users to understand if the product had product/market fit or not.

To see exactly what you can learn by running a full product/market fit survey, read my blog post where I summarize learnings from the survey: bit.ly/slackpmfit
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour @SeanEllis @rahulvohra @Superhuman @firstround @lpolovets @SlackHQ Soon, @Patticus and I are going to launch a video series where we do product/market fit (PMF) research on popular products and share what we learn.

It's a great way for Product people to understand what product/market fit is all about.

Get early access: hnshah.typeform.com/to/szAWu5?src=…
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour @SeanEllis @rahulvohra @Superhuman @firstround @lpolovets @SlackHQ @Patticus From a pure business standpoint the best indicator of product/market fit (PMF) is based on unit economics and profitability.

@dunkhippo33 wrote this must read thread which perfectly summarizes the founder turned investor perspective on product/market fit:
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour @SeanEllis @rahulvohra @Superhuman @firstround @lpolovets @SlackHQ @Patticus @dunkhippo33 There is much more to product/market fit than just product/market fit 🤔

In this mega article, @bbalfour breaks down the different "fits" you need for sustaining long-term growth reforge.com/the-road-to-10…
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour @SeanEllis @rahulvohra @Superhuman @firstround @lpolovets @SlackHQ @Patticus @dunkhippo33 Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a commonly debated methodology. It's even mentioned as a potential product/market fit indicator.

NPS can be valuable but not as a product/market fit indicator because it doesn't predict retention accurately profitwell.com/blog/nps-reten…
@jonathanhsu @tribecap @bbalfour @SeanEllis @rahulvohra @Superhuman @firstround @lpolovets @SlackHQ @Patticus @dunkhippo33 The best "guide" on finding product/market fit after initial success is this one by Tido Carriero about @segment's journey finding PMF again segment.com/blog/finding-p…
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Hiten Shah
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