What are the most important features to test during product-market fit validation for a B2B SaaS product?
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Finding product-market fit (PMF) is a crucial milestone for any B2B SaaS startup. It means that you have a product that solves a real problem for a specific market segment, and that you can grow your customer base and revenue. But how do you know if you have achieved PMF, and what are the best ways to test it? In this article, we will explore some of the most important features to test during product-market fit validation for a B2B SaaS product, and how to use feedback and data to improve your product and strategy.
Before you start testing your product features, you need to have a clear and compelling value proposition that describes how your product helps your target customers achieve their goals, overcome their challenges, and differentiate from their competitors. Your value proposition should be based on your customer research, market analysis, and competitive advantage. It should also be concise, specific, and measurable. You can use tools like the value proposition canvas or the lean canvas to help you craft your value proposition and test your assumptions.
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Krishna Anubhav
Founder & CEO, RankAtom.com | Growth Hacker for SaaS 👉🏻 Helping MVPs go from 0 to 1,000 users in 3 months ( without paid ads )
While a value proposition is crucial, don't be paralyzed by perfection. In the fast-paced digital race, start with a strong idea, refine it through real-world interactions. Think of it as sculpting - adjust as you shape. Success lies in action and adaptability.
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Maxim Tsarev
Helping startups find the #Product-Market fit faster
❗️Clearly articulate how your B2B SaaS product solves a problem or adds value for businesses. This should be concise, setting the tone for why your product exists and why it matters to your target market.
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Daniela Axinte
Entrepreneur • AI Evangelist • Strategist • Innovator • Digital Storyteller
Think not from a feature/benefit perspective but from customer outcomes. What are the outcomes your product/offering will help customers unlock and solve their problems/challenges? Ideally, use thhe beta customers’ data to show quantifiable results (increase/decrease something by x%, etc.). If all you have is qualifiable outcomes, turn the outcome into a feel-good story that makes the buyer the hero of the story, you the their guide, and your product the tool that helps them achieve something they’ve been struggling with. And to do that, you need to really understand your customer, their pain points, how the buyer is measured on, what goals the organization wants to achieve, and how your product can do all these. Then, you write the story.
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Once you have your value proposition, you need to identify the core features that deliver the most value to your customers and align with your vision. These are the features that solve the main problem or pain point of your customers, and that make your product unique and desirable. You don't need to have a fully developed product with all the bells and whistles to test PMF, but you do need to have a minimum viable product (MVP) that demonstrates your core features and benefits. You can use tools like the Kano model or the MoSCoW method to prioritize your features and decide what to include in your MVP.
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Krishna Anubhav
Founder & CEO, RankAtom.com | Growth Hacker for SaaS 👉🏻 Helping MVPs go from 0 to 1,000 users in 3 months ( without paid ads )
While identifying core features is crucial, don't get lost in the feature maze. In the digital realm, simplicity is elegance. Start with a core idea, and refine it through real-world interactions. Think of it as sculpting - trim as you shape. Success is found in agility and adaptability.
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Maxim Tsarev
Helping startups find the #Product-Market fit faster
❗️Pinpoint the essential features that directly contribute to your product’s value proposition. These should be the key functions that differentiate your product from competitors and fulfill your customers’ primary needs.
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Olufunto Okuboyejo
Head, Digital Marketing/IT | Growth & Product Marketing | Marketing & Communications Strategiest | Brand Management | B2B Marketing | B2C Marketing | PR | Digital & Content | Financial Services | FinTech | FMCG |
Your product's core features are like the gems within that treasure chest. They're the unique functionalities that make your SaaS solution stand out. Identifying them is akin to selecting the most precious gems. Prioritize these features for rigorous testing. Consult with your development and product teams to pinpoint these core features. Consider conducting user surveys or interviews to gauge what features potential customers find most valuable. Your goal is to identify the features that truly differentiate your product from others in the market.
Different methods can be used to validate your product-market fit, depending on your stage, budget, and goals. For example, customer interviews are a qualitative way to talk to potential or existing customers and ask them open-ended questions about their needs, expectations, and experiences with your product. Surveys are quantitative and collect data from a large sample of your target market to measure satisfaction, preferences, and behavior with your product. Landing pages showcase your product and its value proposition, and invite visitors to sign up for a trial or demo. Beta testing involves inviting a select group of early adopters to try your product before launch and collect feedback. All of these methods can help you validate your value proposition, understand customer segments, test pricing and positioning, generate leads, measure conversion rates and customer acquisition costs, identify bugs and issues, as well as improve user experience and onboarding.
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Krishna Anubhav
Founder & CEO, RankAtom.com | Growth Hacker for SaaS 👉🏻 Helping MVPs go from 0 to 1,000 users in 3 months ( without paid ads )
While validation methods are essential, don't let them paralyze your progress. In the digital race, action is gold. Start with what's feasible, refine based on real-world insights. Think of it as sailing - adjust your course as you navigate. Success lies in the balance between data and action.
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Maxim Tsarev
Helping startups find the #Product-Market fit faster
❗️Select a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods that best suit your product and audience. This could include surveys, interviews, and usage data analysis to ensure you're gathering comprehensive insights.
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Olufunto Okuboyejo
Head, Digital Marketing/IT | Growth & Product Marketing | Marketing & Communications Strategiest | Brand Management | B2B Marketing | B2C Marketing | PR | Digital & Content | Financial Services | FinTech | FMCG |
Carefully select the most effective validation methods. It's through these methods that you gather valuable data, observe user behaviour, and determine if your product truly resonates with the market. Consider employing both quantitative and qualitative methods. Surveys can provide broad insights, user interviews allow for in-depth exploration of user perspectives. Beta testing offers real-world feedback from users experiencing your product. Collect and analyze feedback from multiple channels, including online surveys, in-app feedback forms, and direct communication with your user base. It's important to balance data from multiple sources to form a comprehensive understanding of your product's reception.
After you choose your validation methods, you need to collect and analyze feedback and data from your customers and prospects. You need to use both qualitative and quantitative data to get a holistic view of your product-market fit and identify the strengths and weaknesses of your product. You can use tools like Net Promoter Score (NPS), customer satisfaction (CSAT), customer effort score (CES), and product usage metrics to measure your product-market fit and customer satisfaction. You can also use tools like customer feedback platforms, analytics tools, and heatmaps to collect and analyze feedback and data from your customers and prospects.
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Trevor Leslie
Product Marketing Leader | Sustainability Tech
To gain deeper insights into how users solve problems with your product, move beyond conventional feedback surveys and engage in in-depth conversations. Pose open-ended questions about their specific workflows, challenges, and how the product has helped them overcome obstacles. A key aspect is to encourage them to organize their thoughts in writing while talking. This often reveals their problem-solving process and how they utilize your product to connect the dots.
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Krishna Anubhav
Founder & CEO, RankAtom.com | Growth Hacker for SaaS 👉🏻 Helping MVPs go from 0 to 1,000 users in 3 months ( without paid ads )
While collecting feedback is crucial, don't let data become a straitjacket. In the digital journey, agility is key. Start with insights within reach, refine based on real-world interactions. Think of it as hiking - adjust your path as you climb. Success is a blend of data and adaptability.
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Zubin Teherani
Convert families into superfans through youth sports marketing
Which features do your customers rave about? Always find your product evangelists and focus on them. They should drive your product roadmap at the earliest stages of product market fit. Focusing on your evangelists can lead to discovering new ICPs, market segments, and feature sets.
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Based on your feedback and data, you need to iterate and improve your product and strategy to increase your product-market fit and customer value. You need to focus on the features that matter the most to your customers, and eliminate or improve the features that cause friction or dissatisfaction. You also need to refine your value proposition, positioning, messaging, and pricing to match your customer needs and expectations. You can use tools like the build-measure-learn loop, the AARRR framework, and the growth hacking funnel to help you iterate and improve your product and strategy.
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Krishna Anubhav
Founder & CEO, RankAtom.com | Growth Hacker for SaaS 👉🏻 Helping MVPs go from 0 to 1,000 users in 3 months ( without paid ads )
While iteration is essential, don't get lost in constant refinement. In the digital world, balance is key. Start with improvements within reach, refine based on real-world insights. Think of it as sculpting - adjust as you shape. Success is a blend of evolution and adaptability.
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Ken Oestreich
I would suggest to iterate based on data... that is, product and feature usage. Examine which features and/or parts of the product are used most, and which least. From that you can develop theories on (a) which features to up-level for use/visibility, (b) which to decrement, and (c) which new features to introduce.
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Maxim Tsarev
Helping startups find the #Product-Market fit faster
❗️Use the feedback and data to refine your product. This means making improvements that align with what users find valuable and adjusting your strategy to better meet market demands.
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Product-market fit is not a static state, but a dynamic process. You need to keep testing and learning from your customers and the market, and adapt your product and strategy accordingly. You also need to monitor your key performance indicators (KPIs) and track your progress and results. You can use tools like the product-market fit scorecard, the product-market fit pyramid, and the product-market fit dashboard to help you keep testing and learning and achieve product-market fit.
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Manoela Vieira
Empowering Global Technology Business Growth Through Strategic Channel Marketing Leadership
Continuously gather customer feedback and dissect market trends to refine your product. Utilize the product-market fit scorecard to quantitatively assess where you stand, and the pyramid to qualitatively understand customer satisfaction. Regularly review your KPIs on a dashboard, and apply statistical tools to discern patterns and insights. This cycle of testing, measuring, learning, and iterating is vital for adapting to market shifts and maintaining product-market fit.
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Maxim Tsarev
Helping startups find the #Product-Market fit faster
❗️Embrace a continuous improvement mindset. Regularly revisit your validation methods and metrics to ensure they remain relevant as market conditions and user expectations evolve.
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Anthony J Nelson
Making Revenue Repeatable | Challenging Assumptions | Helping B2B Companies Grow Easier in Complex Markets
One of the biggest things to consider is that product marketing is actually a revenue center. When you look at it as a lynchpin of where the heart of all revenue creation starts, that can inform the strategy. Yes personas and messaging and the like are very important, but they can't be in a vacuum. Really important to get close to the sales process and pipeline to know the friction points in revenue capture. That's where heroes are made.
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Maxim Tsarev
Helping startups find the #Product-Market fit faster
❗️Beyond the product itself, consider the impact of market trends, customer service, and user experience on product-market fit. Also, stay agile and be ready to pivot or adapt your approach in response to new insights and changes in the market.
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Olufunto Okuboyejo
Head, Digital Marketing/IT | Growth & Product Marketing | Marketing & Communications Strategiest | Brand Management | B2B Marketing | B2C Marketing | PR | Digital & Content | Financial Services | FinTech | FMCG |
Achieving that perfect product-market fit is an exhilarating journey that combines data analysis, user understanding, and strategic thinking. Competitor Analysis: Analyze your competitors, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and adapt your product accordingly. User Personas: Creating user personas helps tailor your product to users specific needs and preferences. Onboarding Experience: Ensure a seamless onboarding process that helps users unlock your product's core value with ease. Customer Support: Ensure efficient and responsive support, helping users overcome any hurdles and keep them engaged with your product. Community Building: This helps users connect, share experiences, and reinforces their trust in your product.