The document discusses the importance of achieving product-market fit for startups. It defines product-market fit as having "a product that can satisfy the market." Startups should prioritize finding product-market fit by developing a minimum viable product, testing it with customers, and iterating quickly based on feedback. Signs that product-market fit has been achieved include fast customer acquisition and usage growth, positive press, and investment interest.

1. PRODUCT-
MARKET FIT
SOMU VADALI @TIEKERALA
PRODUCT @ HOPSCOTCH
PLF TRUSTEE – BENGALURU

3. 9/10 STARTUPS FAIL
PRODUCTS
66% DRASTICALLY CHANGE
THEIR ORIGINAL PLANS

4. Market
Product
People
STARTUP SUCCESS

6. START UP EVOLUTION PHASES
Finding product market fit should be the first priority of
startup

7. Problem/Solution Fit
 Product Market Fit
 Scale

8. WHAT IS PRODUCT
MARKET FIT?
“Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product
that can satisfy that market.”
- Marc Andreessen

9. FRAMEWORKS

10. Ux
Feature
Set
Value
Proposition
Understand Under-met
Needs
Target Customer
LEAN PRODUCT PROCESS
Product:
Market:
Test with
customers

11. Evaluate if you are solving the right problem using a viable business model

13. CUSTOMER PERSONAS
Build customer personas modeling the behavior, goals, key activities and
frustrations with existing solution

14. IDENTIFY USECASES

15. CREATE MVP
Problem
• A customer problem, need or
benefit that the product
should address
• E.g. Ability to write in zero-
gravity
Solution
• A specific implementation or
design to address customer
needs
U.S. Solution
Space Pen: $1M USD R&D Cost
Russian Solution
Build least and simplest feature set to take the value proposition to market

17. VALUE PROPOSITION GRID
Competitor 1 Competitor 2 You
Must Have Benefit 1
Must Have Benefit 2
Performance Benefit 1
Performance Benefit 2
Delighter Benefit 1
Delighter Benefit 2
Competitor 1 Competitor 2 You
Must Have Benefit 1 Y Y Y
Must Have Benefit 2 Y N Y
Performance Benefit 1 Low High Med
Performance Benefit 2 Med Med High
Delighter Benefit 1 Y - -
Delighter Benefit 2 - - Y
Unique
Differentiators

18. TEST TEST TEST WITH
CUSTOMERS

19. CONDUCT CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS
Validate that the customer
has the problems you
think they do.
Identify what alternatives
they have right now
Think holistically – you
may find problems to
solve which you didn’t
think of!
Remember, you are not selling
them anything now..so no hard
sales tactics

20. GET BETA CUSTOMERS

21. FOCUS ON GETTING A FEW GOOD
CUSTOMERS INITIALLY

22. DELIVER VALUE BEFORE REVENUE
Value Metrics

23. ITERATE QUICKLY
 Define the work with user stories
 Visualize the work with Kanban
system
 Use cross-functional, dedicated,
co-located teams
 Optimize time and space
 Test new features with customers

24. BUILD A CONTINUOUS FEEDBACK LOOP
WITH CUSTOMERS FOR HYPOTHESIS
GENERATION

28. UNDERSTANDING COMPETITION
 Competition means there is demand out
there
 Don’t focus on getting to feature parity
with competitors
 Segment! You can’t build everything
for everyone

29. PRODUCT – MARKET FIT FOUND?
“You can always feel when product/market fit isn’t happening. The
customers aren’t quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn’t
spreading, usage isn’t growing that fast, press reviews are kind of ‘blah’, the
sales cycle takes too long, and lots of deals never close. And you can
always feel product/market fit when it’s happening. The customers are
buying the product just as fast as you can make it — or usage is growing
just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up
in your company checking account. You’re hiring sales and customer
support staff as fast as you can. Reporters are calling because they’ve heard
about your hot new thing and they want to talk to you about it. You start
getting entrepreneur of the year awards from Harvard Business School.
Investment bankers are staking out your house. You could eat free for a year
at Buck’s.”
Marc Andreessen

30. PRODUCT AS A BOX WITH
BOUNDARIES…
 User Interface
 Application Interface
 Data Interface
 Buyer Interface

31. USER INTERFACE
 Whose needs matter?
 Context
 Time-to-value
 Web • App • Chat • Voice • Physical
Store
 It’s all about the workflow

32. APPLICATION INTERFACE
 What are your users doing before
using your product, and after?
 Why?
 Upstream and downstream
products?
 Increase engagement • Lower churn
• Increase switching cost

33. DATA INTERFACE
 What are the incoming data sources?
 What are the best ways to receive the
input data?
 How will your output data be
consumed?
 Lower adoption cost • Increase value
from product • Become de facto
standard – defensive barrier

34. BUYER INTERFACE
 Who are the buyers?
 Decision making process?
 What’s in it for each stakeholder?
 Pricing model • Price scaling metric
• Tiered features and services •
Demo features • Simple, fair,
scalable

35. REMEMBER…
USER, APPLICATION, DATA AND
BUYER

36. Problem/Solution Fit
Product Market Fit
 Scale

37. HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE ?

38. GROWTH METRICS

39. FOCUS ON GROWTH
EXPERIMENTS

41. TO 10X