I use Senja to collect testimonials.
Like any early-stage company …
… their software has bugs.
In the process of hitting those bugs:
I picked up a simple technique you can use for product-market fit detection.
Confession time. I’m lazy.
I DO NOT like visiting websites to file bugs with SaaS products.
I just want to email support@ … and be done with it.
But Senja doesn’t let me do that.
They make me submit on their support website 👇
The first time I got a message like this ☝️
It annoyed the heck out of me.
“Why are they making me do extra work?”
But for a couple of the bugs:
The ones that REALLY annoyed me.
I did what they asked.
While grumbling.
Then …
… it hit me.
I was willing to change my workflow for them.
I actually cared about their product.
I was invested.
Hmm…
Feels like product-market fit.
Doesn’t it?
2 Things You Can Learn From My Laziness:
1) During diligence OR when sourcing, look at a startup’s public bug board and/or GitHub Issues.
Are customers actually submitting bugs and/or issues?
How many?
How often?
Also:
- How quickly do they get resolved?
- Which ones do they choose NOT to resolve?
That last one will tell you a lot about how they think about product …
… and product strategy.
2) Are you willing to jump through hoops to use the product (or to get help with the product)?
It could be something like what Senja does, asking users to submit their bugs on a site.
Or what Superhuman does, where all new users must do an onboarding call.
If you are willing to go through with something inconvenient like that?
That’s a signal.
That the product — despite its warts — is a valuable part of your workflow.
A signal that maybe … just maybe:
That company has product-market fit …
… with folks like you.
Speaking of product-market fit:
If my work has product-market fit with you …
… I’d love to know.
👉 Here’s a link where you can share your experience with my work.
What you share goes a long way to helping more people find me.
And it also motivates me to keep building for you.
