The most important part of product market fit

Marketing is very virtual. As a result we often think of it as when we have digits lined up it should work.

If we are cooking a nice dinner to our guests, knowing how to cook and having ingredients ready is not enough for receiving a great reaction. Do we really know what they like to eat? Will they actually like it so we can keep cooking in the same way? What if you cooked then asked what they though of the food, geniune answers only... Then you evolve your cooking and keep improving to make it even better? Now we are talking.

We have a product or a service and we are working on marketing it. To find the true product market fit, the most important step is to actually watch. Watch what your users are doing? How are they using your product? What sort of experience they are having with it? Is it working or frustrating them more?

Find out what they do

Imagine you came up with a software that helps people search on Google much quicker and find the right answer in half the time. Great. The USP is save time while seaerching. Second benefit is not to get frustrated while searching for answers. Superb.

You think your product is delivering that. However, 3/5 users who tried your product did not continue. What's the catch? If it's working why are they not using it anymore?

User feedback

If you watched carefully, 2/5 users who tested and did not use anymore struggled a lot with consistent responses. Your product worked 50% of the time but it was too much of a hassle to use that and in fact they ended up wasting more time.

1/5 users who also stopped using it was simply not that interested and did not want to add another tool to their arsenal to become more productive.

So you identified something you can address. Why did the 2 users get frustrated and why your product did not work for them? Work on it, solve it, get it done.

Build your product on solid grounds to become marketable

No marketing should start on a bad product. Put it simply, if a product is bad, it doesn't deserve to be marketed. You are doing yourself and your customers a massive harm by pushing it hard to waste their time. No. Don't.

What you should do instead is to test, test and test. Improve. Make sure you hit a high % of retention for the beginning. Then build a scalable marketing to reach wider audiences.

Foundation

Don't set up yourself for a failure. No building survives if foundations are weak.

Skipping the ''watch your users'' step is a big NO. Harness the power of feedback and start giving the green lights for marketing push after.