Monthly Archives: November 2015

How To Measure and Achieve Product/Market Fit

TSG_ProductMarket from The Startup Garage

How To Measure and Achieve Product/Market Fit

Product/Market Fit is a term that was coined to define the process of creating a product that resonates
with a specific target market(s).

Taking this definition a step further, Product/Market Fit is proving sufficient demand within a target market segment to justify the spending of capital (human and financial) in order to begin scaling the company.

The definition of Product/Market Fit is fairly straight forward, achieving it is far more abstract.

How do you know when you’ve achieved Product/Market Fit?

When do you transition from a bootstrapped startup focusing all your resources on product development to an accelerated startup that is ready to begin scaling?

Answering these questions correctly can be the make or break for any young company.
Most startups don’t get second chances to scale the business, so timing is everything.
As a result, it is crucial to start measuring Product/Market Fit as early as possibly, to measure it often, and to continually fine-tune your product until you’ve gotten it right before you consider scaling.

Measuring Product/Market Fit is a bit of an art and a science. On the one hand, you can feel when Product/Market Fit is or isn’t happening.

Answering some of the following questions can help you assess the Product/Market Fit Feeling

– Are you getting new customers with little to no marketing strictly through word of mouth?

– Does your sales cycle take too long?

– Are your conversion rates above/below industry standard?

– Are you getting exciting press reviews and interviews?

– Are you struggling with holding sufficient inventory?

– Do you need additional sales and customer support staff to satisfy new customers?

On the other hand, you can use data from customer surveys as a way to measure Product/Market Fit.
Essentially, you are gathering information that will allow you to gauge how much value your customers are getting from the product and how disappointed they would be without having access to your product.

If half of your customers or more could live without your product then it is a safe bet that you haven’t achieved Product/Market Fit (disclaimer: this benchmark will vary from industry to industry based on average churn rates, customer lifetime, customer lifetime value, cost to acquire new customers, etc).

Achieving Product/Market Fit

Once you’ve achieved Product/Market Fit, you are ready to begin scaling the business. In order to scale,
you need to implement a business model that allows you to acquire customers at a profit while still
delivering on the customer benefits and value that got you here in the first place. Continue to test and
tweak your business model until you’ve developed a well-optimized and scalable customer acquisition
process.

Then, you are ready to pour gasoline (sales and marketing dollars) on the fire (a startup with
proven Product/Market Fit and business model).

Taking the time to fine-tune your product until you’ve achieved Product/Market Fit will greatly improve
your likelihood of strong conversion rates and successfully scaling the business. It will also allow you to
reach scale with less capital (giving up far less equity in the meantime).

If you have a question about your Startup business idea or you’d like to discuss our business plan writing services, feel free to contact us for a free consultation!

Tweets. Hearts & Pivots: 5 Startup Business Lessons To Learn From Twitter

5 Startup Business Lessons To Learn From Twitter from The Startup Garage

Tweets. Hearts & Pivots: 5 Startup Business Lessons To Learn From Twitter

As Twitter shares plunge 13% and user growth & revenue pale in comparison to other social networks.

Investors, shareholders, and tweeters alike fear the legendary tech startup is doomed. #TwitterTurmoil

Founded in 2006 by by turning “moments of panic into moments of inspiration”
Twitter is no stranger to the art of the pivot and is taking fast deliberate actionable steps to ensure a successful future.

5 Key Business Lessons To Learn From Twitter

1. Embrace change.


“Expect the unexpected. And whenever possible, be the unexpected.”

Jack Dorsey 
knows when it’s time to hold to true to traditional strategy, and when it’s time to evolve. Twitter doesn’t fear change it leverages it as a discovery tool. Actively re-evaluating what’s working, what may have been overlooked, and to re-imagine what’s possible.

2. Value Consumer Habits.


A product only as valuable as the the User Experience. 
Over 300 million people use Twitter on a monthly basis, however over a billion people have tried Twitter and decided it’s not for them.

Recognizing there’s the potential to appeal to an additional 700million people, Twitter continues to simplify the platform to enhance the user experiences.

Twitter closely studies their customers’ broader behaviors around the use of their products and services.

Here are examples of careful listening and watching:

  • More Visual Pizzaz – Twitter Feed Looks More Like Your Facebook Feed


  • While you were away feature– Recap of tweets you may have missed that have high user engagement
  • 
Moments– lets users quickly find the best of what’s happening on Twitter at any given time.


  • Hearts replaces Stars– “The heart is a universal symbol that resonates across languages, cultures, and time zones. It is more expressive, enabling you to convey a range of emotions and easily connect with people. And in our tests, we found that people loved it.”
  • Polls -people can weigh in on all the topics they care about.
  • Unlock 140 Characters– still undetermined, there are talks of Twitter tweaking it’s character limitation limit beyond 140 characters.


3. Leverage Multiple Product Streams.


Twitter doesn’t rely on one product stream, like most successful Startups, their business model includes and integrates a variety of products/platforms.

Apps like Vine and Periscope are social media moguls individually, however their integration with in Twitter is the startup “Secret Sauce” and perhaps the most crucial ingredient to growth.

4. Never Stop Focusing on Funding.


1.16 Billion dollars in 8 funding rounds later Twitter, knows that seeking and raising capital is a constant battle. There’s not a mysterious funding plateau a startup reaches where investors and investments no longer matter, even for Unicorns.

There’s always a song and dance for funding, with investors scrupulously looking for the highest potential return on investment, with little risk.





5. Choose a CEO that is both a leader and a visionary.

Twitter announced that it was bringing back its co-founder, Jack Dorsey, as permanent CEO. Jack is a lead product visionary at the core, and aims for his products to help society work more efficiently and humanely.

“My role as an observer and as a technologist is to show everything that’s happening in the world in real time and get us to that data immediately, so we can change our lives even faster, with better knowledge.”


People invest in people, a good leader is someone who guides people and empowers it’s members to make big decisions. If I have to make a decision,” Jack says, “we have an organizational failure.”

Whether or not the 5 business lessons above will save Twitter, only time will tell.
It’s a critical time in the history for one of the most mainstream media platforms of our time.


Twitter was born out of a Pivot in 2006 …will it Thrive on a Pivot in 2015?