We failed <3> - Product/Market Fit

PMF - Product/Market Fit, the first milestone for entrepreneurs, means that the product you have worked hard to build meets the needs of the market and is starting to be used. It took me two years to roughly understand what PMF is like.

In the previous article, we failed <2> - the world's martial arts, but Kuaibubao mentioned:

"After the product was finally launched and launched, the team found that the number of users had not improved, so it took about three months to continuously adjust and optimize the "registration process". However, three months later, we did increase the sign-up rate significantly, but still no users. "

Some friends around me asked me after reading the above, why are we constantly adjusting and optimizing the registration process? The answer is actually quite simple:

Because we need more users to verify that our products are needed by the market!

Our assumption at the time was that maybe there were a lot of users who wanted to use the product, but because of the lack of registration process, they were all blocked from getting in; therefore, improving the registration process became our focus.

In order to let more users know about our products, we have added an experience process, a process in which you can experience the functions of the app without registration, just like many mobile games. After spending a lot of time implementing it, we were surprised to find that the experience process actually reduced the user registration rate. Many users did not register after experiencing the app functions! ?

All the signs of failure are in front of us, but we are still obsessed with it. At that time, we did not review the features set of the app for any problems. Instead, we removed the entire experience process that we had done to improve the registration rate! After that, we continued to adjust the registration process, test various text combinations, and remove redundant processes... It took a lot of time, and the registration rate did finally increase, but as mentioned above, the use of registered After a while, they all "die"

In fact, the fact that "more users are needed to verify that the product is needed" is a contradiction in itself. If your product is needed, users will naturally be attracted to use it and stay. Users will not decide whether to use it because your registration process is good or not; a classic example is the Taiwan Railway Ticketing System. However, this seemingly simple truth is only understood after we have paid the painful failure results.

In hindsight, that's where Growth Hacking ended up before PMF. The results are also as mentioned by Ramli John in Why Growth Hacking Could Be Killing Your Startup :

Pre-mature growth hacking can suck the life out of your startup.

Now that we know that growth hacking in front of PMF is stupid, here comes the question:

How do we know if we have PMF in the end?

Here I share a few experiences with you:

1. If you go home every day and debate with your girlfriend/wife whether this product is good or not, I'm sorry, you haven't PMF yet.
2. If you're brainstorming product TAs with your coworkers every day for lunch, I'm sorry, you haven't PMF yet.
3. If your friend asks you: "Then why don't I use LINE (please bring in the name of your strong competitor)...", you will have an urge to flatten him; I'm sorry, you still No PMF.
4. If the Mixpanel / GA has been like the brainwave of a dying person after the product is launched, it will only beat occasionally; I'm sorry, you have not PMF.
5. If the ad stops, the product is dead; sorry, you haven't PMF yet.
6. If the app comments are all your own, I'm sorry, you haven't PMF yet.
7. If user feedback is all developer test letters, sorry, you haven't PMF yet.
8. If there are no more than 10 crash reports per day, I'm sorry, you haven't PMF yet.
9. If you're doing Growth Hacking and find that you're either growing 50% or dropping 50% every day; sorry, you haven't PMF yet.
10. If you would ask each other on the way from get off work: Are we PMF? Sorry, you haven't PMF yet.

2015.12.7