“If you’re pre-product/market fit, the best advice that I have from that period is: action produces information. Just keep doing stuff.”
Brian Armstrong, founder of Coinbase
Product/Market Fit (PMF) is the holy grail for startups. It’s the point where you’ve built something people want so much that they can’t imagine living without it. But finding PMF is more than just checking off items on a list. It’s about understanding your customers deeply, iterating relentlessly, and being willing to pivot when necessary.
I’ve seen this happen many times in startups: you’ve done everything by the book. Identified a significant pain point, formulated a hypothesis, conducted thorough research, mapped out user needs, created wireframes, designed and built your product, and rigorously tested it. Yet something still feels off. You need to raise your next round of funding but there still isn’t that magnetic pull and word of mouth you were hoping for. Welcome to the challenging world of startups, where following the playbook is just the beginning.
I’ve been thinking for a while about how to write this post. There’s so much great content about finding PMF from the likes of Lenny Ratchitsky, Ycombinator, Bessemer, First Round, A16Z and others. So naturally, I’ve used Google’s amazing NotebookLM to better engage with the material that’s out there and get my questions answered.
Let’s start from the end: there’s no single best framework or answer on how to find product market fit. It’s also good to remember that the path to PMF is rarely linear. Some companies are able to find it straight out of the gate and to other (very successful) companies, it took 4+ years to get to PMF as you can see in the chart below from Lenny’s blog. It’s a journey of discovery, iteration, and sometimes complete reinvention. Don’t be afraid to pivot. The key is to stay focused on genuine user value while remaining flexible enough to adapt when the market tells you something unexpected. Let’s dive in.
Real PMF vs. Self Deception
“Finding product-market fit is like dating. When it’s wrong, you’re the one constantly texting them. When it’s right, they’re flooding your inbox and you’re trying to manage all the attention.”
— Naval Ravikant, AngelList
There are four quadrants of product/market fit according to Bessemer. Achieving and maintaining true PMF (the top right square) requires balance and judgment. Startups in this quadrant have a strong product vision that resonates with customers and demonstrates a deep understanding of their needs and priorities.
Fake PMF, as mentioned by Mike Siebel, can occur with sexy stories startups. They may have a compelling vision, but they haven’t yet validated it with meaningful customer engagement. These startups may be successful in attracting early adopters and generating buzz, but their success may be anecdotal and fleeting if they haven’t truly understood the needs of a larger market. The risk, is that they may fall into the trap of believing that their early adopters represent the broader market, leading to a misaligned product roadmap.
Self deception startups are equally risky. Startups in this quadrant lack both a compelling vision and meaningful customer engagement, but convince themselves that they have PMF because they are focusing on the latest and greatest technology, but they avoid engaging customers in a meaningful way.
It’s also harder to tell the difference between fake and real PMF when it comes to revenue centric startups.They may exhibit characteristics like:
- Wide-ranging customer use cases
- Inconsistent sales cycles
- Product customization
- A high level of post-sale service
- Pricing pressure
It’s important to understand when you can be confident you got PMF, because trying to scale before that can be a costly mistake. For example, listen to Ycombinator’s warning to founders about hiring people and increasing burn before they’ve found PMF ?
What does real product market fit look like?
“Product-market fit isn’t just about building the right product; it’s about building the right product for the right people at the right time. Miss any of these, and you’re just building an expensive hobby.”
— Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz
Product-market fit (PMF) is often described as a milestone, but in reality, it’s more like discovering a hidden frequency that suddenly puts you in perfect tune with your market. It’s when your product stops feeling like a solution in search of a problem and becomes the solution your market can’t imagine living without. Let’s start from the textbook definition:
Product Market Fit (PMF) is the stage where a product successfully meets a specific market’s needs, resulting in strong demand, customer satisfaction, and sustainable growth. Achieving product-market fit is a critical milestone for startups, signalling that the product has traction and resonates well with its target audience.
The textbooks will tell you to look for these indicators to tell if you’ve achieved PMF:
- Magnetic Customer Retention
- High retention: Users aren’t just staying; they’re becoming increasingly dependent on your product
- Your churn rate drops significantly, and when customers do leave, they provide detailed feedback instead of simply disappearing
- Organic Growth on Steroids
- Strong word-of-mouth: your users become your most passionate salespeople
- You start hearing phrases like “I’ve told everyone on my team about this” or “Why didn’t this exist before?”
- Feedback That Feels Different
- Positive Customer Feedback: Instead of “nice to have,” users describe your product as “must-have”
- Feature requests shift from “basic functionality” to “power user” territory
- Your NPS isn’t just high; it comes with detailed explanations of value
- Revenue That Makes Sense
- Rapid Sales Growth: Sales cycles shorten naturally
- Your growth curve starts to look less like a hard-fought battle and more like a natural progression
- Efficient Customer Acquisition
- Marketing starts feeling like pouring fuel on an existing fire rather than trying to spark one
- Your CAC drops as word spreads and your brand gains recognition
- Price Becomes Secondary
- Willingness to Pay: Customers stop haggling over price and start asking about enterprise features
- The conversation shifts from “how much does it cost?” to “how quickly can we deploy?”
First Round Capital created a body of content around PMF, and I found their visualisations of the various degrees of product market fit particularly helpful.
Beyond the Checklist: The Real Signs
“When you achieve product-market fit, your biggest problem becomes managing growth, not finding it. It’s like trying to drink from a fire hose instead of searching for water in a desert.”
— Sean Ellis, Growth Hackers
At the heart of PMF, is a deep understanding of the users for your product. Product-market fit isn’t just about checking boxes or hitting metrics. It’s about creating something that becomes an integral part of your users’ lives or businesses. When you achieve it, you’ll know not just from the data, but from the way your entire company’s narrative changes from “pushing” to “keeping up.”
While checklists can be useful for tracking progress, they can’t capture the nuances of PMF. The path to real PMF involves constant iteration, experimentation, and the courage to pivot when necessary. But here’s what they don’t tell you about PMF:
- Effortless Customer Conversations
When nearing PMF, conversations shift from convincing to responding to demand. - Deeper Problem Understanding
As you approach PMF, your grasp of customer pain points sharpens, and your product evolves naturally into the solution. - Constructive Criticism
Feedback moves from broad skepticism to specific feature requests, signaling an alignment with core needs.
Your product doesn’t need to be perfect for everyone—it needs to be essential for YOUR users. It’s particularly exciting at the earliest level, or what First Round calls ‘Nascent’, feeling the pull from the market and having the users rave about your product is one of the best feelings in the startup journey.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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