Everyone talks about PMF like it’s a trophy. In reality, it’s a war of speed, humility, and painful iteration.
Let’s clear the air.
You don’t have product-market fit because you got 50 signups.
You don’t have it because one VC said your idea was “interesting.”
And you sure as hell don’t have it because your friends said, “Dude, I would totally use this.”
You have product-market fit when your product starts pulling users in — without you pushing.
Until that happens, you’re still in the desert. And most startups die of thirst there.
The harsh truth: early traction lies to you
Founders fall in love with early noise:
A viral post. A few hundred signups. Some demo calls that “go well”
But none of that matters unless users come back.
Use it once and leave? You don’t have PMF.
Tinker around, forget it in a week? You don’t have PMF.
Real PMF has gravity.
People feel it in their workflow.
You stop chasing — they start asking.
The mindset shift: Build what people use, not what they say
Most founders build for applause. You need to build for usage.
You’re not validating your idea. You’re validating behavior.
If people don’t use your product without your constant reminders, your product isn’t solving anything urgent.
Real Case Studies of PMF at Work
Slack: PMF starts as an internal painkiller
Before it was a unicorn, Slack was a side tool built during a failed gaming startup.
Stewart Butterfield’s team was scattered across time zones, constantly misfiring on communication. So they built a tool — for themselves — to work better together.
No growth hacks. No performance marketing.
They solved their own pain so well, it became a product.
Their MVP was ugly, scrappy, and deeply useful. That’s what made it stick.
PMF Signal:
Slack saw internal usage explode.
The product became habitual.
Colleagues invited others without being told to.
That’s bottom-up adoption — the holy grail of PLG.
Actionable Insight for Founders
1. Build something you will actually use daily.
2. Solve the problem so well for yourself that it hurts to go back.3
3. Internal utility is the fastest way to spot product-market fit.
Heap: PMF through instant value delivery
Heap didn’t just build another analytics tool.
They eliminated setup friction — no manual event tracking required.
That meant founders and product teams could get insights immediately.
Matin Movassate (Heap’s founder) understood this:
“Most analytics platforms are painful to implement. We flipped that on its head.”
PMF Signal:
Prospects installed Heap in minutes — before the sales call.
The product answered questions so fast, it became a data scientist in the room.
By the time a sales conversation started, users were already “pre-sold.”
Actionable Insight for Founders
Focus on reducing time-to-insight — how fast can a new user get real value?
Cut onboarding fluff. Get users to the “aha” moment in under 5 minutes.
Your product should work before your pitch does.
Expensify: PMF by attacking deep, universal pain
Expensify didn’t promise “smarter” expense reports.
They went straight for the throat:
“Expense reports that don’t suck.”
Every knowledge worker on Earth hates filling them.
Expensify built something so clean and simple, users found it organically via Google.
Their bar wasn’t “delight.”
Their bar was “don’t make me suffer.”
PMF Signal:
Users were discovering Expensify without marketing.
The problem was loud, and their solution removed friction.
Even their branding made the experience less soul-sucking.
Actionable Insight for Founders:
1. Don’t make your user love the process. Make them not hate it.
2. Brand around emotional pain, not just functionality.
3. Simplicity > slick UI. Focus on eliminating friction, not adding features.
How do you know you’ve hit PMF?
Here are real signals to look for — beyond the buzzwords:
1. Users return without reminders
2. People refer others organically
3. Churn goes down, not up
4. Your roadmap is driven by usage, not opinions
5. Support messages sound like love letters or pain yells — both are gold
Common PMF Traps to Avoid
1. Confusing early traction with sustained usage
2. Building based on feature requests, not core pain
3. Over-optimizing design when utility is missing
4. Ignoring churn and calling it “early days”
If you’re still forcing people to use it, you haven’t nailed it yet.
Founder’s Playbook to Earn PMF
If you’re in the trenches right now, here’s how to move forward:
- Talk to 20 users — ask what’s broken in their workflow.
- Ship a dead-simple solution — no fluff, just friction-removal.
- Measure what happens without you in the room.
- Track retention, not just acquisition.
- Double down on users who pull value. Ignore the rest.
TL;DR — PMF is a signal, not a story
You don’t talk your way into product-market fit.
You observe your way into it.
It’s the moment when people use your product, tell their friends, and get upset when it’s down.
It’s earned by listening harder, shipping faster, and solving better.
Let’s keep going.