Product-Market Fit
The signal that a product genuinely serves a market that wants it.
Before fit, every gain is pushed uphill. After it, the market pulls the product out of your hands.
When the market pulls
Product-market fit is the state where a product satisfies a strong market demand — where enough people want it badly enough that growth stops feeling like pushing and starts feeling like keeping up. Marc Andreessen's original framing was blunt: you can always feel when it's not happening, and you can always feel when it is.
It isn't a launch you schedule; it's a threshold you cross, and often quietly. Slack, Superhuman, and Figma each spent long stretches looking unremarkable before demand tipped from polite interest into people organizing their work around the tool.
Before fit vs after fit
Before fit
You chase the market.
- Growth needs constant push
- Users try it, drift away
- Word of mouth is quiet
After fit
The market chases you.
- Usage grows on its own
- Retention curve flattens
- Users recruit other users
Core insight
Don't pour fuel on growth before the market pulls. Scaling a product without fit just spends money to expose the gap faster.