One of the first steps of any entrepreneur or developer who has an app idea, is to flush out the app concept into a basic product description. The reason for this is that a basic product description is important to start the second step, which is to do a product market fit analysis of your app idea.
What is Product Market-Fit?
Product market fit is the process of evaluating your application’s profitability and whether it can satisfy its consumers’ demands. A product that is a market fit helps consumers find a solution to a particular problem.
Depending on the type of product it can have a high-frequency usage or high value. However, the most important characteristic of a product market fit is that they meet its consumers’ needs and have a high retention rate. Yet, you should know that product market fit is a spectrum. It’ll depend on how close you get to meeting your customer’s demands in the long run.
You can also check out our Podcast on Product Market Fit here: sbox.bz/PCProdFitVid
Why should you find the Product Market Fit of Your App Idea?
Finding the product-market fit for your app idea is important for several reasons:
– Validate your idea: By researching the market and gathering feedback from potential users, you can determine if there is a market need for your app idea and whether it will be well-received. This is especially important if you are going to get funding for your product, since one of the first questions investors will have is, “How do you know people will buy your product/service?”
– Save time and resources: If you build an app that does not have a strong product-market fit, you risk investing significant time and resources in a product that may not be successful. By finding the product-market fit first, you can avoid this scenario.
– Improve your product: Understanding your target market and their needs can help you refine and improve your app idea to better meet their requirements. While doing a product market fit analysis, you will get valuable feedback from the market that you can use to improve your product concept.
– Increase user engagement and retention: A well-designed app that meets the needs of its target market is more likely to attract and retain users, which significantly increases the probability for a successful business..
– Facilitate growth: By finding the product-market fit, you can identify the key features and functionalities that are most important to your target audience, which can inform your future product roadmap and help facilitate growth.
– Attract investment: Investors are more likely to invest in a product that has a clear product-market fit and a proven track record of success.
Overall, finding the product-market fit of your app idea is crucial for increasing your chances of success and making the most of your investment. The product market fit is an indicator of your app’s success. It determines the acceptability and engagement of your product. It is the most accurate indicator of how well your product is doing in a particular market.
Now, how do you know if you have a product-market fit? Is it an “either you have it or not” metric? Or is it a spectrum?
How to Find your Product Market Fit For Your App Idea
Before launching your application, it is important to understand the feasibility of your project and how you meet your target audience’s demand. Below, we have compiled a few tips that will help you determine your product market fit.
1- Identify A Problem And Its Solution
The first thing you should do is identify a problem in a particular field and determine whether your application can solve it. Let’s look at this example:
– Problem: “Anxiety and depression hit at any moment, but you have to wait until your next therapy session if you want to talk about your feelings.”
– Solution: Build an app that provides therapy sessions 24/7 for people suffering from anxiety or depression.
2- Identify the Target Audience and Conduct Research
Now that you know how your product can help solve a particular problem, it’s time to understand your target audience. This is a crucial step in the product development process. You need to be as contemplative as possible. You should determine who would benefit from your product, why they will choose you instead of the competition, etc. It is important to understand their priorities, demographics, and motivations. To collect this information, you can conduct surveys and interviews with your target audience.
3- Determine The Product’s Usage Frequency And Value
The next step is to determine your product’s usability. High-performing products are used frequently and offer high value to their customers. However, you can also get a successful product that is less frequently used but offers high value and vice versa. The only indicator that should prevent you from building a deficient product is knowing that it’ll be used sporadic and it’ll offer no value to your target persona.
4- Narrow Down Your Idea And Define It
At this point, you should be clear on your product idea, your target audience, and how you want to get to them. Now it’s time to narrow down your idea and be as specific as possible when defining it. This will help you move into the next step which is building your minimum viable product (MVP).
5- Build An MVP And Gather Intelligence From Customers
An MVP is a prototype of your product that has the required features to function properly but it’s not necessarily perfect. It is only used for gathering feedback from your potential consumers. That’s why you shouldn’t worry about it being perfect since it’s an early stage of product development that can be improved in the future.
The MVP will help you gather early impressions from potential users to identify your product’s acceptability and areas of improvement.
6- Keep Track Of Your Metrics (Retention And Usage)
Now it is time to evaluate the performance of your product. There are two metrics that will help you determine whether you have a product-market fit: usage and retention. When launching an app, you might feel tempted to use metrics, such as downloads and uninstalls.
However, these are not generally indicators of success; you should focus on usage and retention. This is what will tell you whether your users find your app useful.
7- Use Your Metrics To Improve Your Level Of Product Market Fit
Something that most successful apps have in common is that they evolve. It is important to listen to your consumers’ complaints and demands to continuously improve your product. This is what will eventually help you improve retention and maintain your product’s profitability.
Product Market Fit SaaS Tools
The most cost effective way to do product market fit, is manually yourself using basic things like spreadsheets, recording conversations, etc. If you have some time and a little money, there are several SaaS (Software as a Service) options available to help with product-market fit for a product idea. Some popular options sometimes have free trials to get started, or low cost plans. Here are some of the more popular SaaS Product Market Fit tools:
Aha!: A cloud-based product management tool that helps teams create and prioritize ideas, build roadmaps, and track progress.
ProdPad: A product management tool that helps teams ideate, prioritize, and plan product features.
UserTesting: A platform that provides on-demand user research and feedback to help teams validate product ideas and understand user needs.
Validately: A platform that provides remote user testing and feedback, allowing teams to validate product ideas and optimize the user experience.
Feedbackly: A platform that provides real-time feedback and insights from customers, allowing teams to understand and improve the customer experience.
Qualaroo: A platform that allows teams to gather insights and feedback from their website visitors, helping them understand user needs and validate product ideas.
These SaaS options can be valuable for developers, startups and businesses looking to validate their product ideas and ensure that they have a strong product-market fit. By leveraging these tools, teams can save time and resources, gather valuable insights from customers, and make informed decisions about product development.
Wrapping up
Determining your product market fit in the early stages of product development is an essential step. It helps you minimize risks and determine its profitability in the long term. That’s why you should take the time to understand your target persona and how you will provide a solution to their problems.
Yet, you should know that this process does not end during the development cycle. If you want to stay relevant in your community, you should be constantly gathering feedback and using that information to improve your product.