Product-Market Fit

Product-market fit is the point at which a product satisfies strong market demand well enough that growth becomes meaningfully easier and more organic.

PMF is famously hard to define precisely, but it's easier to recognize its absence: if a team is grinding hard on acquisition and retention with modest results despite good execution, that's often a signal the underlying product-market fit isn't there yet, and no amount of marketing optimization will fully fix it. Growth tactics generally amplify what's already working — they rarely create fit that doesn't exist.

Sean Ellis's PMF survey (asking users "how would you feel if you could no longer use this product," with 40%+ saying "very disappointed" as a rough signal) is one commonly cited, if imperfect, way teams try to measure this qualitatively.