Relationship Product Market Fit
How do you know if someone has product market fit with you?
One of the most challenging things to do in new ventures is achieving product market fit. This concept also holds true for relationships. Relationships include friendships, romantic partners or business relationships. How do you know if you have product market fit between friends? This post explores indicators of relationship product market fit.
Indications of product market fit in new ventures comes from usage, retention of users, NPS scores and paying customers. The equivalent for relationships:
Usage per session: How much do you interact with each other when together?
Usage frequency: How frequently do you spend time together?
Retention: Will this person still be your friend in the future?
NPS Score: How likely is this person going to give you a positive recommendation to other people?
Paying customers: Are you investing time into each others wellbeing (emotional regulation, active listening, assisting in self actualization) ?
Identifying relationship product market fit is important because efforts at relationship growth will yield no returns unless you have product market fit first.
Here are my current thoughts on the indicators above and how to value them as signals:
How much do you interact with each other when together?
Interaction time is a positive indicator but not as strong as others
This does not include same group interactions
Imagine your app is being packaged as part of a bundle with nine other apps
Just because the bundle is being bought doesn’t mean people like your app
Just because someone likes a group you are in doesn’t mean they like you
How frequently do you spend time together?
A potential indicator if the prospective friend is an extrovert
Introvert friends will naturally need more time alone making this a potential misleading indicator
Will this person still be your friend in the future?
This is one of the best signs of product market fit
Difficult to ascertain retention initially other than benchmarking relative to similar people you know
Try to identify patterns among existing friends that have the best retention
How likely is this person going to give you a positive recommendation to others?
This is a great sign if observed over a period of time
Recommendations imply an exponential growth rate for the cohort
Mutual NPS scores must both be neutral to positive or it doesn’t make sense to expend any further energy on the relationship
Are you investing time into each others wellbeing?
People will experiment with a free delivery service app
Most of them will leave when it’s not free
This is one of the best signs because it requires an investment from the other party
All five indicators activating is a good clear sign of friendship market fit. A few will do as long as you are aware of the nuances of what they imply.
If you don’t have indications of relationship product market fit - then it’s time to improve the product (yourself), change the offering or change the target market. I’ll explore this a future post!
