How to use the product-market fit canvas to track pmf?
Introduction to the product-market fit canvas
Product/market fit is an assessment of how well a product satisfies the market and the user’s need for that product. This combined score considers a product as a whole, from how consumers use and desire it to market demand. If you want to know more about pmf, read out our comprehensive guide on product-market fit.
The product-market fit canvas is a tool that allows you to think about different aspects of your customer and your market to help ensure that you create something that is likely to achieve pmf.
The product-market fit canvas is a way to track the progress of your product-market fit. It can help you to identify when you have achieved product-market fit, and it can also help you to track the progress of your business over time. The canvas consists of eight boxes, which are each described below.
When to use the Product-Market fit canvas?
Every startup goes through a few different stages as it grows. In business terms, there are a few essential stages that all startups go through.
- Making sure that your potential customers actually have a problem that your product can solve is called a “problem/solution fit.”
- Making sure that your potential customers want your product, and not just any product is called product-market fit.
- Developing a growth strategy for the product.
The second stage of development — finding a product/market fit — is what the pmf canvas is all about.
It can be difficult to know when you have achieved product/market fit. This is because there is not one specific thing that proves you have reached this goal. In order to find a market opportunity for your product, you should read our article on how to build mobile startups that make money.
There is a template called Product/Market fit Canvas that can help you evaluate the product/market fit for your app. This template helps you find out who your customers are and what you can do to connect with them and meet their expectations.
The template is divided into two parts: one for customers and one for products. The customer part helps you figure out who your app’s target audience is. The product part helps you after your app has been launched, to see how it fits into the overall market.
How to use the product-market fit canvas?
1. Identify your customer
Begin by filling out the fields on the left. Note that you may wish to do this before releasing a product or service. During this stage, you should answer the following questions:
- Who is your user/customer and what do they want to achieve?
- Why do they need your product or service in order to achieve their goals?
- How do your customers find your products or services?
- What does your customer use the product or service for to get real value?
Another way of putting this is to describe your customers’ characteristics and tasks, problems and needs, channel, and user experience. You may tackle these sections separately or as a group.
2. Add your product information
Complete the columns on the right for your product or service. It’s a good idea to complete this after you’ve launched a product or service. During this step, you’ll want to answer the following questions:
- What solutions are customers currently employing to complete their tasks, and which tools are they utilizing?
- What are the components that your product or service needs in order to fulfill your consumers’ demands and problems?
- What is the purpose of this channel and how are they going to get value from offering and selling your goods?
- What will you track in order to see if consumers are receiving genuine value?
Another way of framing this is to describe your product or service’s alternatives, important characteristics, value for the channel, and key performance indicators. Alternatively, you may work on these components separately or as a group.
Example of the product-market fit canvas
When you complete the first part of the Product/Market fit Canvas template you will end up with a table that looks like this:
The above example is for building an online pet food store for urban pet owners.
Characteristics: Finding pet food stores, buying pet food, comparing different food products available in the market
Alternatives: Physical pet food shops, other online pet food stores, and marketplaces
Problem & needs: Hard to find physical pet food stores in your area, lack of choice for food products and brands, hard to compare different brands due to the lack of reviews
Key features: A marketplace for pet food, 24-hour free delivery, customer ratings of the different food products available in the store
Channel: Online shop, Instagram shop
Value of the channel: You can drive customers to your online store using digital marketing & SEO, You can drive Instagram users who are also pet owners to your Instagram store
User experience. Users can:
- easily add items to cart, make payments and check out quickly
- enough choices to help customers make decisions to buy
- resources for pet owners e.g. a blog that contains information about pet health, care, and safety
Key metrics: average order value, total sales per month, repeat buyers as a percentage of total no. of customers
Once you have filled out the template, you will understand where your product fits in the market and how much demand there is for it. This will help you avoid making mistakes when you overestimate the initial demand for your product.
Five reasons why the pmf canvas is helpful
- The Product/Market Fit Canvas is a simple tool that helps you focus on the most important features of your MVP. It also helps you identify your product’s strengths and weaknesses. This information is essential when you’re starting to develop your product.
- The Product Market Fit Canvas helps you focus on how your product is different from others.
- The Product Market Fit Canvas helps you come up with a number of business opportunities. It helps you figure out if these ideas can be successful on the real market. The Product Market Fit Canvas guides your product from a raw concept to a real business opportunity that can be tested on the market.
- The Product Market Fit Canvas can help you figure out which metrics are the most important for developing your product and how well your product meets customer needs.
- The PMF Canvas can help your team look at the big picture and understand what they need to do to get to pmf and why they need to do it.
You can download the product-market fit canvas here and use it as per your needs.
