Rahul is the Founder & CEO of Superhuman, an innovative email management tool using gamification methodology to motivate users to work and learn with more efficiency, productivity, and joy.
During the long and arduous progression of creating superhuman, Rahul created a framework quantifying product-market fit, usable for potentially any company or product. His thought process is relatively simple. If you could measure product-market fit, then maybe you could optimize for it. And if you can optimize for it, then perhaps you could systematically increase product-market fit until you achieved it. His was a startup, but using the ‘Lean Start-Up’ approach, even well-established companies should have opportunities to launch innovation for their existing customers. Understanding if and when product-market fit occurs is imperative to a company’s proposed product launch and ultimate success.
First, it’s important to understand what a product-market fit looks like. According to Marc Andreessen in his 2007 blog post: ‘
"The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make them. You can always [also] feel when the product-market fit is not happening. The customers aren't quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn't spreading, usage isn't growing that fast, and lots of deals never close.”
What are the critical factors for product-market fit, and how does one know when they are reached?
Rahul created a 5 step engine to take them through this process
Set up a survey to ask your users, "How would you feel if you could no longer use products offered by your company?” The group that answers ‘very disappointed’ will unlock a pathway to reaching product-market fit. Sean Ellis, CGO at Dropbox, LogMein, and Eventbrite, established the benchmark number of 40%. Companies that struggled to find growth almost always had less than 40% of users respond "very disappointed" — whereas companies that grew most easily almost always exceeded that threshold.
Segment your audience to find supporters and paint a picture of high-expectation customers.
Analyze feedback to convert on-the-fence users into fanatics.
Roadmap your improvements by doubling down on what users love and addressing what holds others back.
Track product-market fit over time as your most important metric.
Superhuman was designed to increase ‘Flow’ in its users. What is Flow? Flow is a psychological state of mind with six subcomponents. Athletes or musicians can describe being in or feeling flow when they are ‘in the zone.’
What does it mean to be in the zone?
Intensely focused concentration on your task.
Completely absorbed to the point of not thinking about the future and not worried about the past.
The task is so demanding that we don’t care about what others are thinking about us.
The task becomes so easy that we always know exactly what to do next.
The experience is so powerful that it alters our subjective experience of time.
The activity becomes so rewarding that it becomes intrinsically motivating.
How can businesses help their customers experience flow with products designed for them?
Always know what to do next.
Always know how to do it.
Be free from distractions.
Receive clear and immediate feedback.
Feel a balance between challenge and skill.
If something is perceived to be too hard, then the emotional reaction is anxiety. If we perceive the task to be too easy, the emotional response is boredom or even apathy. Despite sounding counter-intuitive, software designers create their products with a balance of both challenge and skill to be the most sticky, effective, and build a solid following. Superhuman achieves this by making their email platform focused on learning new skills and achieving new mastery levels of their software. Users will become better at using their software just by using their product. Superhuman users’ goal is to hit inbox zero, without using your mouse, only by using the keyboard. By Superhuman achieving the balance between perceived challenge and perceived skill from their users’ survey feedback, they help their users achieve flow.
Wouldn’t it be a fantastic opportunity if a business's customers could have the same experience of achieving flow when using their products or software?
Answering the question, how does my product make users feel when they are using it, is the first step towards achieving that goal.
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