Recently in the PMF stage of a new product line, let me briefly discuss with you today. PMF is the abbreviation of Product Market Fit, which refers to the product market matching degree.

Author: Li Donglin (micro-channel public number: SaaS product say; Micro Signal: jianguzhuxin), vegetables little secret co-founder and former head of ADP products in Greater China, 14-year To B R & D and product design, team management experience, He has led the design, R & D, and launch of many large-scale enterprise management software. He also has entrepreneurial experience in mobile Internet TO C.

Recently in the PMF phase of a new product line, today I will briefly discuss PMF with you. PMF is the abbreviation of Product Market Fit, which refers to the degree of product market matching.

After we define the MVP of a product, the next stage is to conduct market verification of the product to verify whether the hypothesis of product development is true. Most products die at this stage. If we do not directly promote the PMF stage, it is very It is easy to cause a lot of waste of resources, and it is difficult for you to locate the problem that really needs to be solved.

The PMF stage is very important. Only when it is verified that our products can meet the market demand and the market space is large enough, can it be worthwhile for subsequent large-scale growth. PMF generally based on product MVP has been completed (If you want to understand the definition of MVP, you can refer to the original article “How to define MVP of B-side products” ) , that means we have done the following things:

  • We have defined the portraits of our core customers and target customers.

  • Defines the value we want to provide to our customers through our products. The value provided to customers is based on our in-depth understanding of the industry and customers. If we can find the most important value point that can penetrate the market at the MVP stage, it is perfect, although it is difficult, but we need to Think about it and work hard to find the smallest set of values ​​that can penetrate users. To provide core values, different unique values ​​drive our product definition.

  • Based on the previous two points, the MVP of the product is completed with the minimum feature set.

    When performing PMF verification, we must first find a certain number of target customers based on our target customer portraits, and then perform product verification. Regarding PMF verification, several important principles are as follows:

    • PMF customers’ quality is more important than quantity

      When selecting a PMF customer, the customer must satisfy the portrait of our target customer. Do not choose some customers that do not match our target customer in order to meet the index of the number of experimental customers. If you only focus on the number of customers instead of quality, the actual needs of each user will be inconsistent, which will lead to mixed feedback from our PMF stage, which is difficult to distinguish, and A lot of demand feedback from non-target customers may completely distort the product.

      In addition, if you have 100 customers using your product, but if all of them use the product in different ways and based on different purposes during the PMF stage, the demand will be extremely dispersed, such a product is very Difficult to be standardized and scaled up.

      • Do not end the PMF phase prematurely

        If you decide to start expanding your SaaS business without proving PMF, there will be huge risks. The market you imagine may not exist, or the market may not support your business. If the PMF stage is not fully verified, it is premature to conduct large-scale marketing and sales to sell products that are not needed in the market. When business growth problems occur, it is difficult to know whether the product has no market or because the sales strategy is not. Caused correctly.

        • Word of mouth in the PMF stage is the most important

          PMF stage is a stage to verify the matching degree of the product market. The final judgment point of the verification is the word of mouth of the user. In fact, the PMF phase is also a process of completing a cold start. If the user-oriented scenario is centralized or the type of acquaintance relationship chain, the word of mouth in the PMF phase can continue to bring new users through the fission of the user. good job.

          In addition, in the PMF phase, the overall principle is to make the weight first, then the light. Do not expect the product to solve all problems in the early stage. You can make sales, operations, and services a little heavier, and maintain close and high-frequency and in-depth communication and contact with users, so as to collect the appropriate information. Requirements Abstraction StandardizationAfter that, slowly realize it on the product, so that the sales and operation of the product will become lighter.

          So what kind of situation proves that a product has passed the PMF stage, you can look at the following signs:

          1: Within 3-9 months, more than 10 customers pay to register to use your product.

          2: You have at least 5 customers who don’t need custom development to use your products.

          3: At least 5 customers have used your product for a month and found no bugs.

          4: At least 5 customers use the product in a similar way to the expected results.

          If the above four situations have been achieved, it basically shows that the product market matching is not bad. You can hire the person in charge of sales, invest in marketing, and start to expand on a large scale. Of course, there are some differences in the number of customers required for B-end products of different customer sizes at the PMF stage, and there is no uniform answer.

          In general, 6-8 customers are required for medium and large customers (more than 1000 people), 20-30 customers for medium-sized customers (100-1000 people), and small customers (less than 100 people) More than 50 are needed to verify the PMF stage.

          In addition, you can also use a relatively simple survey questionnaire to verify PMF, and use a relatively simple question to investigate users:

          1: If you no longer use this product, what is your feeling?

          . very disappointed

          .There is some disappointment

          .Not disappointed

          . I no longer use the product.

          In general, if more than 40% of customers choose to be very disappointed, it means that your product is quite successful. It is difficult for customers to leave you Products and services are ready for product marketing and promotion after the PMF stage. If most customers are not disappointed, then rethink product positioning and think about what value customers really need.

          If a piece of software does not solve the pain points of the user ’s core, and the user just uses the system in pain based on the boss ’s request, the author thinks it is a failure, or that such a product is difficult to be very powerful vitality.

          The last thing to explain is that PMF is a continuous process, and the market is constantly changing. This also means that after each iteration of our Product Feature, it is a PMF process. We need to constantly adjust our products based on the market, and continue to PMF, so that we can keep up with the pace of the market and maintain long-term development of the cause.