 Hey everyone, my name is Andrew Oh, and I will be your presenter for today Today we'll be covering the topic of how to find product market fit cool. All right. Here we go So again, this presentation is really for both product managers and founders So if you are one or the other highly recommend you stay for this presentation because I think this is really important Especially on the founder side or if you're again a PM working on a startup like zero to one product This is I think really key for you to learn. So Yeah, without further ado, let's get right into it Let me first Explain to you my background. So I set up my career first as a As a founder I had founded a sports company called Mint ultimate back in 2013 broke up. I broke over six figures in sales in the first 12 months and expanded that company into over 20 countries in sales and that was my first startup as a sports company and Then I transitioned to my second startup called Bambify Whereas mental ultimate became more of like a four-hour work week. So I Bambify There I had created a marketplace to connect both e-commerce businesses and manufacturers together from premium manufacturers, I'm sorry from premium countries like Japan and in Korea In order to have a trusted production run going for these econ businesses. I then got accepted to the Optimus Accelerator program in San Francisco. So I flew there and worked on my third startup called super which was a flying taxi company failed to the timing issues and At that point I was really fatigued having done startups for five years So I transitioned to becoming a PM moved from North America all the way to Singapore to work a grab Which is the Uber of Southeast Asia so worked there under the trust and safety team as a senior PM and did that for about again the two years and Transition to bike dance aka tech talk where I was a founding PM working a zero-to-one product and that is my Career in a nutshell what I'm doing right now I just put my job two months ago to go back to startups, which is what I love to do where I'm currently Working on an app called social city. So we just launched about two months ago Social city is an app where you can find meet-ups There's like small groups of people who are hosting casual hangouts like going for drinks It could be dinner or work session stuff like that to make new friends and at the same time there's a new speed where you can discover really cool places To go to yourself or if you want to see what the typical life of a Japanese person is or Columbia You can also see where they're going and where they're posting So that is social city the current app that I'm working on right now Alright, so now that we're over my background. Let's go right into what is product market fit? This is a question that has a lot of interpretations It has a lot of different definitions that I've used by various people and people have different ways of trying to measure it as well I will give you my interpretation of my take on it Having been through failures and successes and being all the wiser from all of those experiences Product market fit comes down to one simple truth. Do people use the product? That is it So when it comes to other things like MPS when it comes to You know seats at scores When it comes even to the user feedback None of that matters. What does matter is retention. Do people actually use the product? So you need to measure that and you can get the feedback You know from the users themselves to kind of like see you know How people are engaged in the product how they feel about it make any iterations you need to but really it again I can't stress this enough it comes down to that simple truth that people use it and I'll give you another great example Part of my could fit work day I think it's generally known across the tech community to be a really shit product everyone hates it yet People still use it and they are still for some reason the number one HRCM solution in the world another example Pokemon go This is a game especially among the true Pokemon fans that everyone hates But there are enough incentives there in daily missions and everything else Where it still propels them to one of the top games in the world and again totally conquered most of Even Singapore there's a lot of aunties and uncles who are actually playing as every weekend and there is something there again ship products But people play it people in it works and it works and there's enough incentives to make that work as well Such as events and transfer a Pokemon to the real game where the true fans actually play so product market fit is it doesn't have to be a product that people love it just needs to be a product that people use and and That gives you a little bit of more leeway in terms of like where you want to prioritize especially both as a founder as a PM And that can be conflicting at times because as a product manager your job is to Not only, you know, of course reach those objectives Compatible objectives that the companies has said others as the OK ours to deliver impact and You know a big part of it is also to deliver a phenomenal experience But what if the experience is actually not the most important thing? We hear all the time about things like product left growth We hear all the time about how you know on a phenomenal experience can help with retention and engagements churn Etc. But again, none of that matters. They just need to keep using the product So I'm gonna get into this really important topic Why product managers I've not met I've not met one product manager my entire career so far and even a lot of founders I've met like Maybe only two founders of my life like to these are in other words. I've only met two people in my life Who actually know how to find true product market fit? But I'll get into why I think most PMs don't know Product market fit and how to really get into it or how to achieve it This is because 99% of the product management jobs that are already out there that you're probably in right now if you are a PM You're working on a company and a core product that has already won And most of what you're doing is this feature expansion or if you're even higher than that You're probably just working on product strategy. But again on a core product that already has the entire audience and that already has Well beyond product market fit. It's like at a growth stage. Maybe it's even mature stage at that point So There's not a lot there's not enough knowledge circulation There's not a lot of people in the world that actually understand Especially if they're just coming from the PM side on how to find product market fit because again, they've never actually worked on a zero to one product This is really really important to understand and acknowledge first in order to then understand how You can differentiate yourself and get that experience in order to actually achieve it so It fundamentally comes to this We're to start and as a PM and as founders we've glorified this notion of Solving a problem I think solving a problem is fine but Most of the greatest innovations in the world. We're not solving a real problem That's the problem That's the problem with most people in this community What they were doing was just trying to make something 10x better And I'll give you some examples Well, no, let me take a step back. Let me define what a problem is a problem in my definition is a conscious issue That's one wants to solve Every time they come up with this situation So, uh, you know, I'm gonna go back to this, you know tried and true saying If you ask people back like 200 years ago what they would have wanted they would have asked for a faster horse Because that's all they knew, you know, they didn't really have a problem with horses. They got them from point A to point B Yet, you know, this guy named four came around and decided to make something better Way better a car an automotive Um Another example is tiktok. Last time I checked tiktok was not solving a problem Um, you might have pms and uh, you may even have some founders who say, hey, you know what like they were solving a problem They were like Make giving the power of creation to everyone where everyone could be directors. They like really solve that issue of creation No, dude, that is not solving a problem. Uh, and that is not how you should frame the valid probability of tiktok. Uh, either tiktok Was simply just a better way to express Uh oneself in a socially dynamic environment and then No, um in a hyper discovery environment Uh, it was completely open network, but then closed network like traditional social networks. That was a lot of strategy um, and that was simply just again Making something better. It wasn't really solving a problem for the user and the user was not even conscious of That made a problem that other people would probably say it was so, uh Honestly, a lot of the best innovations had came up from the right side that you're seeing here by making something 10x better Most of The greatest innovations did not come from solving a problem. All the problems have already been solved Any other problem that's trying to be done is solving something so incremental. It's not even worth going for So I would highly recommend If you are going to consider on a place to start you want to make something 10x better and start from there Now this is um I think a really important lesson to learn. Uh, it's a really important principle. This is about incremental improvement Um, so I was saying that I like to say if you're not unlucky You didn't learn so When you start, um When you start something, uh, let's just say you have an idea and you want to go for it Your chances of success is probably going to be less than 1% You're just at the idea stage And if you have 100 people that you just pull out from the streets or maybe from your school or maybe when you start the community Uh, chances are that 90 of them are going to fail off the bat, you know, and actually a lot of that is self-defeating Um, it's a self-defeating mindset Maybe half of them are not even going to try the other 40 the other 50% will take the first step um The thing is the other half that actually took the first step They automatically improved their chances drastically from maybe 0.1% to 1% and that scales that compounds so the more effort you put in Uh, the more you try persistence is key The more you're going to open up other opportunities where people can help you where you're going to learn and Where you're going to just incrementally Make all these micro decisions along the way based on use of feedback based on mentor advice Based on what you're finding on the research You're going to make this product better. You're going to learn how to make better decisions. You're going to learn um, how to how to succeed in different ways On the product itself whether that's on growth designing building Doesn't matter That's not just a principle for product market fit. That's a life principle itself and so You want to get to a point where you're the most unlucky person to ever find product market fit um because there are people like soccerberg there are people like um Let me think about the people I can't really think of others right now. That's time but um, you know You you basically want to get to a point where you've failed so many times Uh that you've understood the lessons thoroughly in and out of why something will work why something doesn't work What is the human behavior? When you learn when you fail you learn something You learn something about people you learn something about your product and from there you make the adjustments required in order to Incrementally improve it and therefore increase your chance to succeed. That is a key principle when it comes to trying to find product market fit so don't be discouraged um Because anytime you have an idea You're going to launch with it and you're likely going to fail and that is a core principle about finding it It's a process. It's not you launch And you either succeed or you fail. That's not how you find it Um, and so let's just say we had this idea we launched it um And it and it lands flat enough to ask And you're going to wonder what happened because I got all these right signals. Um, I like had this great idea I I talked about it to all my friends. I talked about it with the strangers I talked about it. I found out who the target persona user persona is um, and I showed them the designs the high fidelity prototypes we have um we have iterated the designs until it's fully intuitive and um, you know, how how could this not Happen how what what are the skills? Um, you know, we did all the research like we talked to dozens of users Yet they're not using the product It's because user research And all forms of user research whether that's qualitative or quantitative Uh, can be taken where the grain of bullshit so um To kind of like clarify what I mean by that It's one thing to say something based on your perception of how it's presented to you Uh, aka designs have the information that you're conveying to the interviewer to the interviewer Um, how you're explaining it and they can understand it 100 percent. They're fully aligned with you However, it's a completely different story when you actually give them the product and you expect them to stay on the platform Or stay on that product for x amount of time Uh, maybe that's like one month. Maybe that's like two months three months um, their behavior is going to change and I will give you some examples later on on um, how I also had recently gone through this with social city um, and had come to realize that Again user research, uh kind of went out the window there So let me show you this first iteration that I had at social city um, I'll explain the different components here um, what the research said and uh, where things went wrong so Again, social city was a way for people to find both meetups and uh, actually was a place to find people as well that you can just find on a map view and directly message um Or you can just request to attend, uh, the meetup itself So there are a couple things going on here. Um So when I have this design, uh, I'll just quickly give you a quick design review of this There's a public view. So these are just like you can see the entire world All the meetups are happening. You can see the people that are all around you Or you can filter for just your friends aka people that you're following Uh, just kind of like have a um a better view of the only people of only the people you care about um On this tab over here, uh, we have multiple tabs. You can just filter for just the meetups You can filter for just the people And we had another thing here called open to meet. So, uh, if you like tapping yourself You have an option that will pop up saying are you open to meet? And if you are you'll have like a little fire, uh icon here Um to indicate to the people that you're open to meeting right now So people thought that was really cool. Um, I would totally love to um, just you know, uh be open to meet And um, I think it's also really cool that you know, um, I can see all these people around me I can like message them. I can like find meetups It's really awesome. I've never seen anything like this. Definitely not um anything as open Network and or or open world as as this before and I would totally use it I had uh, probably 30 people from all various backgrounds Half of them are friends. Half of them are complete strangers Also the same thing followed the typical guidelines of these research I asked them very open any questions didn't ask them any leading questions um had no taker um for some of the sessions and some of the sessions I didn't but anyways Point is I had a lot of green flags so then I'll launch it and um Turns out that people played around with it for the first five minutes And a lot of them didn't end up coming back to open up this map view Actually, what they ended up really engaging with was the news feed and just making check-ins Uh, and that was when I realized there was something wrong here So that's the key thing. Um, what ended up happening the results they ended up They ended up not really using the products. Um, and so again, we had a lot of green flags And so those green flags validated their their interest, but whether they would stay That's a completely different story that you will never know until you actually launch your products And so it's not the end of the story here. Um, I made some alterations based on the feedback I cut out the open to me to try to simplify the app and the understanding of it because a lot of people were confused about it about it Although they said they really liked the concept And then I also, uh, got rid of all so I just Defaulted only to the meetup tab first And then if people wanted to also see other people they could still message them or filter for them right there And um, turns out that people still didn't really use the app Um, and because there was a sense of stranger danger That was there and also they were a little bit. Um uh They were a little bit, um confused as to like how they can Let their intentions be known of like what they're really on the app for as well as what they want a message for So I iterated a second time So over here, uh, this is like a profile view So you can see that this person's here for all three reasons for networking dating and for friendship Um, and so what you can do is you can, uh message this person. I'm sorry. I'm gonna this is like the wrong design. Um Hold on So you can message this person and I'll show you here And when you message when you click the message button, you're going to get Um, this pop up that says are you? Um, you can choose a chat topic Uh for social dating or networking and when you choose that chat's topic It will come up over here saying and you started a social chat casually get to know each other So this makes it really clear Off the gecko when you're messaging someone random from the map view of what you're Of what you're messaging them for And uh, and then you can manage your chats all in the inbox, you know Have the different icons to indicate and remind you what the topic of the chat is A lot of people thought that was a really clever way to uh Get not only address the stranger danger issue, but also to address the awkwardness of Making your intentions clear on what you're messaging them for and um So then when I launched that when I launched this, um Again, uh, it didn't get rid of the stranger danger. In fact, I had a lot of women Messaging me saying that they felt really uncomfortable about these guys mentioning them about dating and um You know, these are like normal guys some of them are weird, but most of them are normal And that's when I again had just realized this is not working out So I actually cut this feature entirely and I also cut out the goal tags Uh to simplify the app further again, and that's again a process of iteration You just have to keep going at it over and over beat it down like a drum Until you finally get something that works, but you're getting signals. You're learning and you're understanding why it didn't work Why it failed? And that's the key part product marker fit is a process It is not a pass fail situation as soon as you launch Don't make a decision right there and then product marker fit usually takes in or between Two to 24 months it can take a really long time But you just can't give up All right um So again, you just got to iterate your way to product market fit um as long as you have a core product That core product can always be adapted and so um, you know, there were And we can just go over some quick examples of this snapchat starting out started out as this promiscuous way to message each other for college students things that you shouldn't be messaging each other or showing videos off and YouTube started as a dating platform Hell I started out as what you just saw there a map based social products um And none of those products are what they are today instagram was a bourbon photo sharing app and now it's a life sharing app and so much more um As long as you have a core product you need to get the feedback and you need continuously iterate until you find that fit and A lot of times some people are going to get really upset about this because they're going to start realizing um That their initial vision and what they really wanted this to be for them from the very beginning Is actually not what it's going to end up becoming Uh, so as a founder as a product manager, um, you have to accept this But of course if you're working as a product manager in a company Uh company strategy is usually set Whether that's from the strategy team the ceo. There's a lot of alignment that happens on the sweet sweet um level Or the exact level And so usually if that strategy is really towards that one way, um, unfortunately that Very often means that you can't deviate from it and most likely You're going to fail and sometimes again Product market fit is not always about products product market fit is also about strategy. It's also it's also about um It's about the strategy the operations and everything else um, and so product is only one core part of that And as a product manager, you're going to be very limited in what you're um Subsequently going to be able to do with that um so Again, uh core product once you have that, um, keep testing things keep experimenting Keep interviewing new users stay really close to them because for you again It's you're going to be habituated to the product over and over and over again. You're the one that works on every day You're the one that looks at the designs every day So you can never see it as a new user and if you can see it as a new user every day It probably means you won't be remembering this discussion because uh, because it means you have a learning disability So, uh, that's what learning is. That's what habituation is. Um and so Keep adapting keep iterating. I'm going to now give you some, uh, what I call safe areas on Kind of like some some kind of like a little little trick that you can use in order to uh, have a direction of a product in a way that's uh That may more likely have some sort of fit So number one existing behavior Um, you want to try to go for something that people are already doing So observe them. They actually I think steve jobs did a really great job at this. Uh, there is this kind of like bs. Um Saying that he never did he was a research Um, he may not have been doing what product managers and founders are doing today You know, which is where you know, you just go up to them and you're like you're asking a ton of questions And you're showing them your designs all the time He did a lot of research He just wasn't talking to them, but he was observing them. He was observing the behavior And that and from that he was able to come up with great ideas that Actually ended up doing some really magical stuff and he was also testing a lot Uh, after that after he got the idea, then he started testing a lot inside the company Uh with the with his employees. So again, um Existing behavior This is really key understand the motivations Actually see what they're doing today. Whether that's like how they're going to go eat. Um, how they're using utensils how they're traveling Any kind of action there is always an opportunity there. Um, and there's an opportunity to learn so Go after things that they're already doing um Because behavior doesn't really change and to create new behaviors is extremely hard second Uh in terms of aside from what they're currently doing, uh, there is uh, we are human beings. We are really emotional Beings and so you can always try to feed the ego What I mean by this classic social media Um, they have found great ways to feed the ego So if you're making any kind of like social component or social virality component into your product Um, you can always try to feed the ego itself. Um, all these feel good features Credentials credibility within the network or the platform that you have Um, so for example, you know being a coach on exponents um being a um a superstar LinkedIn profile uh having a uh check mark on instagram uh having a ton of followers having a ton of engagement like likes and comments on your posts All of that is feel good and uh, it elevates you to thinking that you're a little bit higher in society Feed the ego. Um If this part is applicable to you, uh, this This is a great way more so to kind of like keep loyalty, keep retention But also can also feel engagement as well And the third area Um is to make a dream come true So i'll give you some quick examples of this class pass when they first started out you could go to um, you can go to studios unlimited times a month And then became unprofitable, but um, that's how they started out and it was a dream come true You could just go to any gym feel like a king Or a queen But you can just go anywhere walk in anywhere and just do a class That was a really magical experience um Movie pass the notorious movie pass Go see a movie as many times as you want for a nine bucks a month Or a 10 bucks a month That's insane Um, and there were a lot of people that took advantage of that and they thought movie pass was the best thing in the world Uh, and that led them to getting a ton of traction ton of growth ton of users just their word of mouth You can always make a dream come true and sometimes It works and sometimes it doesn't uh when I mean it doesn't work uh, usually when you make a dream come true it is It's a dream that doesn't come true for one side and usually that's the business side. So, um If you do if you finesse it like class pass did we're eventually once you have the core user base You you make the adjustments get the unit economics, right and you adjust the plans you can make that work So these are some safe areas. Um best practices that uh, I think a lot of people should be considering when they're Um, you know again thinking about how can they find product market fit in this idea or this space that? Um, you know, we're considering All right, so just to conclude uh, just to summarize Um, what the process of how to find product market fit Again, it's a process. It's an iterative long tedious process. You need to keep going at it Don't give up Um, and your chances of success compounds if you're a founder you have all the freedom of the world to keep going at this If you're a product manager Um, no matter what level you are Uh, that's going to be a lot different because again, you're going to be confined to a certain space a certain area And so part iterating yourself to finding that product market fit means that you may very likely have to deviate entirely from the strategy So what you can do as a product manager is you can try to upsell and manage upwards To convince leadership of another potential opportunity and new space if need be But again, you know, that's also really risky for for the for your managers for your leaders because It's untrusted territory and uh, it means throwing in resources to something that has no guaranteed success but then again most things That made it really far had even worse odds. So Uh, that's something for them to digest But and that's also up to you and how you were able to upsell that to them Uh, secondly, uh, again, uh, use your research can be Uh, can really be full of shit Just be very careful about Um, the kind of feedback that you're getting or rather If the feedback you get In the ideation stage and the design stage Is always inevitable. Um It is going to be what it is But just don't say your expectations too high if you get a lot of green flags. Otherwise, it's going to really put you down Um, so don't be too discouraged when you launch it thinking it's going to work and it doesn't And then finally go after greener pastures. Um, try to go into the savior as I mentioned before existing user behavior You can go after feeding the ego or uh, you can kind of make a dream come true in a product and that itself can Really help get a lot of traction in the early days and then you can make the adjustments later on All right, so I hope this was super helpful for you guys If you want to follow up if you have any questions, you can uh, contact me through the details below Please give me an ad on linkedin And um, thank you so much for joining and I will hope to see you soon