If your product disappeared, would anyone care? The truth about product-market fit

It's not rare that companies invest heavily in marketing or extra features to fix acquisition and retention problems while skipping the core issue: how well the product aligns with what actually matters to customers and the behaviors they've already formed. 

If a product doesn't fit into how customers think, act, and solve their problems today, no amount of pushing will change that. 

Imagine launching what you believe is a game-changing product. Cutting-edge tech, sleek design, a proud team behind it. But when you go to the market, what is the response? A shrug. 

This happens more often than you'd think. And usually, the culprit is the same: missing product-market fit (PMF). 

It might seem simple — you know the problem, you have a product that solves it. But reality is trickier. Having a product and an audience is a good start, but it's not enough. So what's next? How do you avoid getting stuck? 

This is the perfect time to measure your product-market fit. Instead of focusing on growth tactics, it's time to pause and figure out whether the product is helping clients get where they want in a way that fits into their lives.

Product-market fit: what it really means

It isn't just another startup buzzword - it's the foundation of sustainable business growth.

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz gave the most comprehensive definition of product-market fit: "Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market". 

When you hit that sweet spot, everything clicks: customers want what you're selling, retention skyrockets, and growth feels effortless. It's like a key fitting perfectly into a lock. The key represents your product — with all its features, design elements, and technical capabilities. The lock represents your target market's specific needs, pain points, and desires. 

Product-market fit has three pillars: 

1. The customer — someone with a real problem. 

2. The problem — a challenge that needs solving. 

3. The solution — your way of solving it, with the potential to become a product valuable enough to pay for it.

But why finding product-market fit matters? 

Product-market fit (PMF) is crucial. 

It defines your place in the market and shows whether your business is on the right track for growth. Scaling without PMF is either impossible or a waste of resources. You need it to ensure you're moving in the right direction — and to refine your approach, because there's always room for improvement. And the best time to find and test your PMF is before you dive into full-scale product development. 

When product-market fit becomes a question 

There are clear signs that it's time to stop tweaking the interface, building more features, or increasing marketing spend — and instead reassess how your product actually fits demand. These patterns show up when growth stalls, acquisition is too expensive, or retention just isn't there.

Here are the red flags: 

• You launched based on early-stage research, and you've got some users. But bringing in new ones? Much harder than it should be, and marketing ROI isn't growing. 
• You gathered interest early on, maybe even got customers saying, "This sounds great, we'd totally pay for it." But the moment you introduce a paid version, those same users disappear. 
• You're attracting a mixed cohort of users, and it's unclear who actually gets the most value from the product. Some customers leave quickly, others stay, but there's no clear pattern — no group where the product feels indispensable. 
• When talking to potential customers, they don't easily get why your product is the better option. They keep asking the same clarifying questions, struggling to see why they should switch. 

When these patterns show up, it's not just a sales or marketing issue — it's a sign that the product itself needs to be rethought to better match actual demand. 

Ok, and how can you measure if you've nailed product-market fit? 

Luckily, you don't need to guess — there's a proven way to test PMF: The Sean Ellis Test.

That's it. If fewer than 40% of your customers wouldn't care if you shut down tomorrow — you haven't found true PMF yet.

What kind of users are yours? 

Start by asking them one key question: 

How would you react if our product ceased to exist?

When you identify users who would be very upset, somewhat upset, or not upset at all if your product disappeared, separate them into groups and analyze each one individually. 

The first group is your main focus — that's the ones who can't imagine being without your product. These are your most valuable users. Build your ideal customer profile (ICP) around them. 

Gather their feedback, find the common patterns, and refine your positioning accordingly. The rest? They're simply not your target audience, and that's okay.

What can user insights tell you?

Dig deeper with additional questions: 

• What would you use instead if our product disappeared?
• What benefits does our product give you?
• Have you recommended it to anyone? If so, how did you describe it?
• Who do you think benefits most from our product?
• In your opinion, what should be improved in our product? What's missing? 

While all groups provide insights, your most engaged users (those who would be upset) hold the key to improving your PMF. That's your most active user group, and their insights will be the most valuable. 

Understanding the value users see in your product shapes your positioning, unique value proposition, and roadmap. It also reveals how your brand is perceived. To get these insights, collect all responses about value, create a word cloud, and analyze the most impactful descriptions first before diving into the full set. 

Identifying who benefits most from your product is key to defining your ICP. Since users essentially describe themselves, you gain a clearer picture of how your most loyal customers see and position themselves. 

Finding areas for improvement 

Your most loyal customers use your product the most. They know where it shines and where it falls short. Their feedback is your best resource for refining and optimizing. 

Want to build something people can't live without? Start by understanding the ones who already feel that way. 

Using jobs to be done to understand product-market fit

At the heart of PMF is understanding why customers adopt (or don't adopt) a product.

The Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) framework helps cut through assumptions and focus on what customers are actually trying to accomplish when they "hire" a product. JTBD helps you figure out why your users choose to use a product in the first place. 

Key JTBD insights for PMF:

• What outcomes matter to your audience? What challenges are they trying to overcome? 
• How are they currently solving this problem? What habits do they already have? 
• What drives their decision to look for a solution or switch from an existing one? Conversely, what may drive their indecision or choice to stick to the status quo? 
• Who's most likely to adopt, based on real behavior? → Instead of segmenting by company size or industry, what leading indicators can we define? 

But defining jobs isn't enough - companies need a way to incorporate new information and validate assumptions before going all in. 

This is where design becomes a useful tool.

Can design help you to achieve PMF? 

Long story short: yes. 

Design goes way beyond pretty visuals — it's how you create experiences your audience actually craves. When examining successful tech products, a pattern emerges: those that achieve strong product-market fit often excel in user-centered design. 

Look at FinTech, where complexity has to feel effortless. A payment platform can be technically flawless, but if the interface doesn't instantly resonate or simplify complex tasks, users will tune out. Here's where strategic design becomes a market fit catalyst. This is exactly what we focus on in FinTech — take a look.

Design as a market research tool 

Modern design processes, particularly in the discovery phase, offer invaluable insights into market needs. During the discovery phase, user research, prototyping, and iterative testing designers don't just shape UI/UX — they become the eyes and ears of product development, capturing crucial market signals that shape product direction and revealing game-changing insights.

Designing interfaces that align with user behavior

When key jobs are identified via the JTBD, the design ensures the product experience aligns with how users naturally think and act. It: 

• Makes interaction scenarios familiar → If a design matches how users already think and act, adoption is easier. 
• Guides users toward key actions → Good UX helps people complete the job without unnecessary steps. 
• Designs for habit formation → The best products fit into existing routines instead of requiring new ones. 

For instance, in e-commerce, checkout design can be optimized by analyzing how users expect payment options to appear, minimizing unnecessary steps to reduce drop-offs.

Design as a communication tool

Design can also help communicate what the product is for and how it fits into users' existing habits. It: 

• Clarifies value through visual cues, by ensuring interfaces communicate the core job the product solves. 
• Educates users through onboarding flows, using micro-interactions, progressive disclosures, and contextual hints to make job fulfillment seamless. 
• Reducing ambiguity in decision-making, by removing unnecessary complexity that forces users to "figure it out" on their own. 

A classic example is Slack's onboarding, which uses design to walk users through team setup — removing uncertainty and reinforcing how the product fits into their existing communication habits. 

By treating design as part of the JTBD research process, companies can see firsthand what works and what doesn't — before scaling a flawed solution.

The bonus one: development — where ideas meet execution

Design uncovers the opportunities. The development makes them real. But it's more than just writing code - it's about building the right things, the right way to achieve product-market fit. 

Tech choices that define market fit:

Scalability architecture: Can your product handle growth, or will it crack under pressure?

Performance optimization: Is it fast and reliable enough to meet market expectations?

Integration capabilities: Can it seamlessly connect with the tools your market already relies on?

Emerging technologies: Leveraging innovations like AI to keep your product at the forefront of industry trends. 

Smart development teams don't just check boxes — they engineer products with user experience, market adoption, and long-term business scalability in mind. Cause they understand the importance of their role in product-market fit. 

And that's all about the synergy of strategy, design, and development

Great products don't happen in silos, they emerge when strategy, design and development work as a unit, in harmony toward product-market fit. We call this the "fit flywheel": it all starts with strategy - finding the right market fit → then design enables the best user experience → and finally development drives implementation and scaling. And the cycle keeps building momentum.

Conclusion: moving ahead

Finding product-market fit is not a one-time event — it's a constant process of refining your audience, messaging, and execution. When you truly understand your users, shape a product that fits their world, and build it with the right mix of design and development, PMF becomes inevitable. 

So, before you scale, ask yourself: 

• Do I know exactly who my product is for? 
• Do they truly need it? 
• Would at least 40% be upset if my product disappeared? 

If you can't confidently answer "yes" to all three, it's time to rethink and refine. And if you've got all three 'yes,' you're ready to move confidently into the discovery phase.