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Is this enough validation/product market fit?
Hi everyone, this might be a stupid question so please bear with me. I appreciate any help and advice here to clarify my thoughts and any misunderstandings I may have.
So, here goes nothing.
I have a product which essentially makes it easier for people to build almost any layout they want without thinking about CSS much.
I’m still working on the product but I have 40 sales and have gathered $1,500 in gross revenue. Most of this revenue currently comes from my email list.
Product is one-time fee of $49.
Is this considered validation? But not Product Market Fit? I’ve been hearing a lot of things about PMF and I feel the noise is clouding my judgement.
So, here goes nothing.
I have a product which essentially makes it easier for people to build almost any layout they want without thinking about CSS much.
I’m still working on the product but I have 40 sales and have gathered $1,500 in gross revenue. Most of this revenue currently comes from my email list.
Product is one-time fee of $49.
Is this considered validation? But not Product Market Fit? I’ve been hearing a lot of things about PMF and I feel the noise is clouding my judgement.
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Hey, Zell, that's awesome you've already gotten sales! Congrats! So many people work on products but never launch (or hear crickets when they do), so the fact you finished, launched, AND have seen success deserves acknowledgement and celebration.
I'll try to keep this as simple as possible.
What you've done, yep, that's product validation. You've validated the need for the product AND people's willingness to pay for it to solve their problem.
Market validation is one of the first steps of the process because you don't want to spend months or years building something before you ever validate the idea. When you go to market to validate your product, you're typically starting with an MVP, not the full potential of what it could be.
When we talk about PMF, that's later in the process where you're creating THE BEST product for your specific audience to solve their specific problem. This is where you can start dominating a certain niche. You're not just meeting their bare minimum expectations anymore; you're exceeding expectations in a way that positions you as the only option for your market.
This requires lots of testing, feedback, and time. Most products never fully reach PMF because they either move on to another product or attach their ego/self-esteem to their product to the exclusion of listening to their customers and changing core features of the product to best fit the market's needs. (Big mistake. Detachment is key, and the focus is always on the customer/end user.)
Also, what's the product and what's your strategy?
1.) Is this a one-time product fee so you can generate lots of leads and upsell them into a higher-ticket product or service?
2.) Is this product something you can charge monthly for to earn MRR?
Thank you @cat. Your comment has been wonderful for me. I feel like I have let go a large portion of the “you haven’t hit product market fit and therefore you shouldn’t focus on this product anymore” voice in my head, and I’ll be able to work on my projects more.
There’s a huge relief that I don’t have to let my “babies” go — because there’s so much I want to do with them too.
For this product, I don’t have a marketing strategy unfortunately. The validation mostly comes from my email list. I’ve thought about using ads a lot recently.
This product is a library that lets developers build web layouts easily and quickly. I have an initial launch page right here: magicaldevschool.com/css-layo…
Currently, pricing is a one-off fee at $49. I think it’s possible to add on another related library at an extra $49 in the future when they’re more robust… but that would take some time!
Would be lovely to hear about various marketing strategies if any.
Seo doesn’t seem to be working well recently because of the Google updates — especially for stuff like this, I feel.
Personally I don’t worry about achieving “PMF.” If you’ve done that much revenue you’ve validated the idea, and now I would just ask for feedback from users and start building useful things for them in public, try new marketing techniques (how is your SEO? Have you tried getting influencers to talk about your product? Etc), then watch the revenue grow. As long as your customers are happy and you have some kind of vision for where you want to take the product and you’re moving towards that, that’s enough IMO.
Thank you, Ben. I’ll try not to worry about PMF too then! PMF doesn’t help me because it instills tonnes of anxiety.
My users are quite quiet for some reason. So asking them feels akin to talking to a Wall sometimes. I know, weird, but that seems to be the case?
Haven’t tried getting inflicted to talk about it yet because I want to make it a bit more robust before doing that. I feel it’s too early — but that might be my fears holding me back.
Regarding SEO, I kind of think I’m “failing” SEO recently. I have no idea what works anymore — used to have a blog that gets 1mil visitors each year but it’s been reduced to say 360k according to GA4 this year. Kinda depressed about the results there to be honest.
Hey man! You have sales! That's validation enough for me!