The first battle SaaS businesses must overcome: getting to product/market fit. 

The next one: keeping it.

There’s nothing more frustrating than growing strong momentum to realize growth and adoption flattens, and then decline starts to kick in.

The fact is: product-market fit is a moving target. Then you have it; suddenly, you don’t. 

Why? Dynamics change. Dynamics you don’t have control over.

• Market conditions change – just look at today’s economic downturn
• Political conditions and regulatory rules change
• Technology evolves at a mindblowing speed
• New competitors enter the market
• and so on

All of that impact what your customers expect from you. It changes their priorities, their requirements, and what they expect from you. As simple as that.

So the critical question is: How do you keep the strongest possible Product-Market fit?

Here are five factors that I’ve started to value most:

• Be ultra-clear about the business you’re really in.
  F.ex. one of my customers, SALESManago is not in the Marketing Automation business; they’re in the business of helping B2C brands maximize eCommerce revenue,… the lean way. 
• Be even more clear about who you are FOR – and NOT FOR
  The more clarity you have on your niche, the easier it will be to nail product market fit and always be one step ahead to keep fit.
• Stop trying to be better – Aim to be different.
  Trying to be better is impossible – you’re competing with every dog and cat out there. No one has that capacity or budget. And even if you had – it’s not sustainable. 
• Create new value possibilities.
  Keep the outcome front and center: focus on creating new solution areas that people would miss if they were gone. It is how you set the benchmark. That causes your competitors to lose product-market fit.
• Prioritize the highs
  Users will always find more gaps in your solution – it’s easy. But that’s not what moves the needle. What moves the needle is the peaks in experience – the moments you’re there to help them when it matters most.

As you can see, doing this well ties everything in your SaaS business: Your foundation: the optimal segmentation, and positioning – the rest flows from there (point 1 + 2). 

Starting on a solid foundation aligns everything and everyone. 

It makes you more resourceful. And precisely that will allow you to get to product-product market fit faster and keep it, especially in tough times. 

Question for you to reflect upon:

On a scale of 1-10: What’s your ability to keep the strongest possible product-market fit in your SaaS business?

 

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