Finding Product-Market Fit

Our first phase was to develop the MVP – Minimal Viable Product, except that our product is not exactly “minimal” any more: we have optimized for the UI/UX, we have tirelessly showcased our products to potential users, and we have gone through a few iterations to arrive at what David Rusenko (founder of Weebly) called a “Minimal Remarkable Product.” Compared to what are out there in the market, we have a few cool features that nobody else has. Of course we still have a long laundry list of features that we can develop, but it is time for us to enter the next phase: finding the “Product-Market Fit.”

I have spent endless hours in researching this topic. The best article I found and have read multiple times is from Superhuman founder Rahul Vohra. He provided a very actionable plan. To summarize the plan, we will design a simple survey for test users to fill out. We then derive a “Product-Market Fit” measure from the survey. Further the survey will also provide insight on which section of market we can narrow down to achieve the best “fit.” Moving forward, it serves as the benchmark to always measure and compare our product to.

Four questions used by Rahul Vohra and we can tweak to be most fitting to our users:

1. How would you feel if you could no longer use Mealvana? A) Very disappointed B) Somewhat disappointed C) Not disappointed (side note: this is very similar to measuring the Net Promoter Score)

2. What type of people do you think would most benefit from Mealvana? (here we can provide multiple choices of tags: busy, training to keep fit, having a very rigid diet, having kids, health-conscious, losing weight, kitchen newbies, etc.)

3. What is the main benefit you receive from Mealvana? (shopping list, great recipes, prepping list, nutrition information, time saver, etc.)

4. How can we improve Mealvana for you? (allergy, kids-friendly, specific diet, macro tracker, weight tracker, 3-rd party shopping integration, etc.)

Further to add to the questions, I think it would be insightful for us to know:

5. How long have you been using Mealvana? (played with it but haven’t cooked with it; cooked once; cooked more than once, etc. Ideally we want to see feedback from people who used it at least once.)

6. Through which channel have you learned about Mealvana? (Gym; Reddit; Meetup; Family & Friends, etc.)

Now how do we get to these people? Well, I kinda gave it away with question 6. Alex and I will actively promote it with the gyms we are working out with (two of us are right now working out in FOUR different gyms). Tab and I will unabashedly approach people on Reddit and from our Meetup groups. Then of course, all of us (I really mean every single one of us) will test it ourselves, ask our dear moms, brothers, best friends, coworkers to try it and give us feedback.

The key is that – and I cannot stress it enough - we ask for honest feedback. We make it anonymous to take the pressure off and we let them know it is anonymous. The goal is not to have a pat on the shoulder, but rather to know where we truly are, and whether we have or how long will it be until we find “Product-Market Fit”? Of course, our moms will still think we are the most genius of all genius, and that’s why ask question 6 will be helpful to reduce some bias.

What lies beyond? I see this phase of finding the fit still an iterative process. Inevitably it will lead us to discover bugs to fix and features to add, but as soon as we find a “Product-Market Fit”, even only among a “niche” market, we will double down on that niche and enter our next phase which is growth.