TLDR: The New York City Marathon has PMF
If you didn’t already know, yesterday was a NYC holiday.
Marathon Sunday.
So naturally, I went out and cheered people on instead of sitting down to write a MMM.
But in as nerdy of a way as possible, I couldn’t help but think how the New York City Marathon so clearly has product market fit (PMF).
People here can’t live without it.
50,000 run the race, but there’s also an endless list of people who couldn’t get in, who would run it if they could, or who promise to run it next year after watching for twelve seconds.
I think that has to be as close to a physical manifestation of PMF as any.
That topic of PMF has also been coming up more lately as we had one of the founders of Superhuman in the office a couple weeks ago who articulated their infamous approach.
Here’s the gist of Superhuman’s approach to PMF:
It’s three questions.
How mad would you be if you no longer had «The New York City Marathon»?
Very Mad
Somewhat Mad
Not Mad at All
What do you love most about «The New York City Marathon»?
What do you want to see more of in «The New York City Marathon»?
From there you take three actions.
Calculate what % of people would be “Very Mad” if they no long had access to your product. Superhuman defined PMF as >40%. Slack defined it as >51%.
Compare those who answered “Very Mad” to question two, what they love most. Build product to deepen PMF with your most loyal fans.
Compare those who answered somewhat or not mad at all to question three, what they want more of. Build product to move people from somewhat mad to very mad.
Of course there’s a much deeper set of user data that’s collected and nuances to making the most of onboarding, user waitlists, targeting users, and so forth, but like I said, that’s just the gist.
Pretty straightforward, but in my experience, very few founders don’t take the time to measure PMF methodically or build product in a way that makes progress against it.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure 100% of people would be very mad if The New York City Marathon no longer happened.
See you Monday.