Product–market fit: a field guide
I designed a guide and workshop materials to help early-stage builders decide what to test with customers. They connect the product, the offer and the route to market, then give people a way to investigate the questions that could change their next move.
The guide is called Your product sucks and that’s ok. My own retail membership business supplies a running example. Customer conversations changed what we built, whom we sold to and what we offered them. The guide follows those changes, including the questions we still needed to answer.
Four questions to revisit
Who needs this, and in what situation? What do they do today? What would make choosing your product worthwhile? Where can you reach them?
The answers affect one another. A different customer may need a different offer; an offer that works in conversation may need to change when someone encounters it on their own.
Choose a test
Four worked examples show how to ask about a real problem, make a concrete offer, observe someone using a product, and deliver a result before automating it. Each example separates what a response tells you from what remains unknown, then suggests a useful next step. The examples are illustrative; they are there to make the method usable.
The final worksheet helps someone prepare a test for their own project: a question, a customer, a way to reach them, and the message, offer or task they will put in front of them. It asks how different responses would change their plans. The worksheet can be kept on the device or downloaded as text.
