One of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around for a long time was the concept of “product market fit” (PMF). It’s easy enough to describe: “pull in the market for your product”. And I was told many a time that if I wasn’t “feeling it” then I “didn’t have it”. But the job of a PM is to not only achieve PMF but sustain it over the life of a product as the market evolves - how are you supposed to do that when you can’t pinpoint where you stand and where you need to get to?
At a certain scale and vertical, having an opinion about the market will allow your product to shape it - the market will meet you. But this is probably rare.
Interesting to think that removing features can actually get you further along the curved, and aligned with the market. Relatedly, stratification comes into play at some point, so the same product can meet different market segments (you might consider several curves in one graph).
Lastly, I do wonder if "subscriptions" tend to become a replacement for truly meeting needs, as you have the proxy for success (recurring revenue) but without knowing if and how your product should evolve in terms of feature set and capabilities and bundling to match a future market state (I'm thinking x delivery).
Really appreciated this tweak on PMF; it’s an iterative + dynamic process where the GTM team needs to contribute whether thru Marketing campaigns, Sales altering purchase dynamics (to de-risk for buyer) or Partners helping to clear up rough edges on a buying experience.
Thanks for sharing; gonna riff on this with my Product team.
Another interesting thing to note would be how 1 product's state of PMF can get affected by another product's rise/fall. Ex. - You have PMF - another product keeps improving and raises market's standards - your product falls off the PMF cliff.
At a certain scale and vertical, having an opinion about the market will allow your product to shape it - the market will meet you. But this is probably rare.
Interesting to think that removing features can actually get you further along the curved, and aligned with the market. Relatedly, stratification comes into play at some point, so the same product can meet different market segments (you might consider several curves in one graph).
Lastly, I do wonder if "subscriptions" tend to become a replacement for truly meeting needs, as you have the proxy for success (recurring revenue) but without knowing if and how your product should evolve in terms of feature set and capabilities and bundling to match a future market state (I'm thinking x delivery).
Really appreciated this tweak on PMF; it’s an iterative + dynamic process where the GTM team needs to contribute whether thru Marketing campaigns, Sales altering purchase dynamics (to de-risk for buyer) or Partners helping to clear up rough edges on a buying experience.
Thanks for sharing; gonna riff on this with my Product team.
Another interesting thing to note would be how 1 product's state of PMF can get affected by another product's rise/fall. Ex. - You have PMF - another product keeps improving and raises market's standards - your product falls off the PMF cliff.