1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,060 - You've got a product, a product idea. 2 00:00:03,060 --> 00:00:05,070 You're starting to work on it. 3 00:00:05,070 --> 00:00:08,000 If you launch your product and no one cares, 4 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:11,020 then you had no product market fit. 5 00:00:11,020 --> 00:00:14,010 Your goal in your exploratory phase, 6 00:00:14,010 --> 00:00:15,020 especially as you're going through 7 00:00:15,020 --> 00:00:19,030 the product development cycle, is to constantly be testing 8 00:00:19,030 --> 00:00:21,090 product market fit as you're going through 9 00:00:21,090 --> 00:00:24,020 that product development. 10 00:00:24,020 --> 00:00:28,040 This idea of product market fit is the magic that happens 11 00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:32,000 when your product really hits a market need. 12 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,020 And in a lot of ways, the only way to know 13 00:00:34,020 --> 00:00:37,000 that you have product market fit is after the fact 14 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:40,040 when you start to see really rapid adoption of your product. 15 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:42,030 But there's a lot of things that you can do in advance 16 00:00:42,030 --> 00:00:45,050 of releasing the product that help you determine 17 00:00:45,050 --> 00:00:48,000 whether you've got product market fit. 18 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:50,060 The biggest of this is to really listen 19 00:00:50,060 --> 00:00:53,070 to your prospective early customers. 20 00:00:53,070 --> 00:00:56,020 Get the product into people's hands 21 00:00:56,020 --> 00:00:59,060 at the very beginning, well before it's a product. 22 00:00:59,060 --> 00:01:00,090 When you get it into people's hands, 23 00:01:00,090 --> 00:01:02,020 it's not just give it to them and say, 24 00:01:02,020 --> 00:01:03,070 what do ya think? 25 00:01:03,070 --> 00:01:06,020 But it's give it to them and watch. 26 00:01:06,020 --> 00:01:08,000 Observe what they're doing with it. 27 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:10,020 Listen to their feedback. 28 00:01:10,020 --> 00:01:13,010 Be critical of your own product. 29 00:01:13,010 --> 00:01:14,090 If you are thinking to yourself, 30 00:01:14,090 --> 00:01:16,090 oh, they don't know how to use it. 31 00:01:16,090 --> 00:01:19,000 Or oh, they're doing it wrong. 32 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:20,080 Turn it around. 33 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:22,080 And try to figure out what it is about your product 34 00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:25,010 and the way that you're giving your product 35 00:01:25,010 --> 00:01:27,010 to your early customers that's causing them 36 00:01:27,010 --> 00:01:29,020 not to understand how to use it. 37 00:01:29,020 --> 00:01:30,080 View it as your problem to solve, 38 00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:32,090 to find that product market fit. 39 00:01:32,090 --> 00:01:36,020 Versus this random thing where the market has to come 40 00:01:36,020 --> 00:01:38,060 to your product. 41 00:01:38,060 --> 00:01:40,070 One of the things that happens as you're getting close 42 00:01:40,070 --> 00:01:44,020 to release your product is there's often a lot of anxiety 43 00:01:44,020 --> 00:01:46,040 because it's your first product release, 44 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:50,060 and so there's this big activity and momentum around it. 45 00:01:50,060 --> 00:01:53,020 If, by the time you've released your product, 46 00:01:53,020 --> 00:01:55,050 you don't know that it's going to fit with the market 47 00:01:55,050 --> 00:01:57,040 that you're initially going after, 48 00:01:57,040 --> 00:02:00,060 you screwed up that ability to test in advance, 49 00:02:00,060 --> 00:02:02,070 and you really side-stepped this opportunity 50 00:02:02,070 --> 00:02:05,000 for product market fit. 51 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:09,030 Many products that are launched into the market fail 52 00:02:09,030 --> 00:02:12,000 because the product itself was really interesting, 53 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:13,070 but there was no feedback loop 54 00:02:13,070 --> 00:02:15,070 from those early customers or the customers 55 00:02:15,070 --> 00:02:18,030 that were the alpha or beta users 56 00:02:18,030 --> 00:02:21,060 that gave the developers of the product that feedback. 57 00:02:21,060 --> 00:02:22,050 So just listen. 58 00:02:22,050 --> 00:02:25,080 Listen carefully to the feedback that you're getting 59 00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:29,000 as you explore and experiment with the product.