How to Measure Product-Market Fit

5 Takeaways from Rahul Vohra’s Presentation to Techstars

Rahul Vohra via Zoom (nice camera!)

One of the coolest perks of working for Techstars has been the opportunity to hear from the impressive array of speakers the company brings in to present. Recently, I had the opportunity to hear a presentation from Rahul Vohra, CEO of Superhuman, on how he measures Product-Market Fit systematically, with what he terms the “Product-Market Fit” engine.

Rahul has published an article on this topic for First Round Capital, which can be found here. In an effort to try and avoid completely rehashing it, I definitely recommend that you take a look at what he has to say, as it is very consistent with the presentation he gave to Techstars.

With that, here are my key takeaways from Rahul’s presentation:

1. In order to improve something, you need to be able to measure and track it. In order to measure and track something, you need to be able to define it. In his presentation, Rahul first introduces Product-Market Fit as an elusive “gut feel.” It is not until he selects a definition for Product-Market Fit (that is, that 40% or more of your users would be “very disappointed” without the product) that he is then able to measure and build his Product-Market Fit engine. I found this point to be very much aligned with the general Techstars philosophy around metrics and goal-setting. Goals and metrics need to be incredibly well-defined so that you can be sure whether or not you actually hit it, and if not, so that you can track how close you came.
2. Trying to win over the unsatisfied customers may not be a good use of time or resources. In Rahul’s analysis, he segments his customer base by level of satisfaction (more specifically, he segments them into groups of users that would either be “very disappointed,” “somewhat disappointed,” or “not disappointed” if his product went away). In his presentation, he mentions that the “not disappointed” segment should basically be ignored when trying to improve Product-Market Fit. His reasoning, with which I agree, is that those users represent the most difficult to convert into heavy-users and are essentially lost already. Moreover, their asks will likely be resource-intensive and still unable to generate product loyalty and adoption. In a resource-constrained environment, it is better to prioritize the needs of other users.
3. A systematic approach to Product-Market Fit can help define the Product Roadmap. I thought that one of the coolest parts to Rahul’s presentation was how he used his survey data to identify what he needed to build next, and in what order. Importantly, he only looks at the product asks of a very specific cohort — those that would be “somewhat disappointed” AND have already experienced the primary benefit of the “very disappointed” cohort (which in Superhuman’s case was “speed”). These folks are essentially on-the-cusp of transitioning to the “very disappointed” camp, and their needs are likely to be low-lift and should be addressed first.
4. Spend 50% of your time building what the “very disappointed” group loves, spend 50% of your time building what the “somewhat disappointed” group wants. With this piece, I believe Rahul is essentially reminding his audience to be balanced in their approach to building products for new users vs. existing users. I thought this was an important point, as one could easily become fixated on building for new users and lose sight of their critical existing users.
5. Build products aligned with what your customers like, not necessarily what they say they say they want. In the presentation, Rahul mentions that when it comes to the “very disappointed” cohort, he doesn’t build what they ask for, rather, he builds products aligned with the “theme” of what they like. In his survey, he asks the users what he thinks the primary benefit of Superhuman is (most said “speed”). Therefore, during his annual team product-ideas summit, he brainstorms around the theme of “speed,” relying on “product intuition,” as opposed to incorporating the exact requests.

Overall, I really enjoyed Rahul’s presentation due to how it created a blueprint for tackling an amorphous concept. Perhaps the next phase of this analysis can be applied to “product intuition,” another seemingly incalculable yet essential key to building successful products and companies.