1. Product/Market Fit
Poker
Are you ready for growth?

2. Who Am I?
• @matjohnson

3. Definitions
• Product/Market Fit: Customers look for
your product, pay for it, and love it.
• Poker: A series of repeated investment
games with limited information.

4. Why is P/M Fit
Important?
• Don’t go all-in when you are holding an
immature product
• Don’t just take it from me . . .

5. Andreessen
• The only thing that matters

6. Blank
• Search, then execute

7. Ellis
• Cannot market without it

8. Ries
• Find the market for product as specced

9. Dorsey
• Product is what we say to the world

10. The Problem
• “The only thing that matters”
• “You know it when you see it”

11. How can you measure
P/M Fit?

12. Back to Poker
• Every week/month/quarter you look at
your cards and decide how to invest for
that period.

13. Game Theory
of P/M Fit
Mkt not ready Mkt ready
Invest in
Blow-up Win
Scale
Invest in
Play again Lifestyle
P/M Fit

14. Know what hand you
are holding

15. Ranking the hands
• Useful benchmarks

16. Money-making formula
• Growth doesn’t exhaust marketing
channels
• Multiple, sustainable channels
• $ in to marketing < $ out from sales

17. LTV 3x CAC,
12 month payoff
• David Skok, Matrix Partners

18. 15% DAU/MAU
• Active and engaged users
• CasualConnect, et al.

19. 3% Upgrade Rate
• Fred Wilson, USV
• Market specific (3% for consumer
freemium,Yammer 20% paid seats)
• 3% is a starting point, not an optimization
goal.

20. 40% “Must-have”
• Sean Ellis
• Specific survey question
• Specifically for P/M Fit
• Not an end in itself

21. +50 NPS
• Raving fans outnumber tepid and negative
combined.
• HBR 2003

22. 30 Surveys
• Roger Murff (Box, MSFT)
• Central Limit Theorem
• Strong signals, no rat-holing on statistical
significance

23. 10 Customer
interviews
• Eric Ries
• Forces a strong thesis about your target
market niche

24. Know your starting
hand
• When to bet and when to wait for the next
hand
• The nice thing is that you can work to
improve your next hand

25. Discussion/Questions
•