How to make your product a need-to-have
From vitamin to painkiller products
Hi there,
When discussing Product-Market Fit (PMF), the usual definition is if at least 40% answered “Very Disappointed” to the typical PMF question:
1. How would you feel if you could no longer use XYZ?
- Very disappointed
- Somewhat disappointed
- Not disappointed
- NA — I no longer use XYZ
This may not sound like a lot, but trust me, not everyone has to love your product
I’ve found this does differ for vitamin vs painkiller products:
Painkiller vs Vitamin brands
Painkiller products tend to have a higher PMF (a higher % say very disappointed). The highest PMF I’ve ever seen was 78% for a previous client who did a gastric bypass survey which is definitely a painkiller for their customers.
So with vitamin products, you might be happy if you have 30%, but it will still be harder to scale.
Being a painkiller is key to strong Product-Market Fit, but not only that it makes you more resilient to changes in the economy.
Once a vitamin, always a vitamin?
Just because you are a vitamin it doesn’t have to stay that way.
One person’s vitamin can be another person’s painkiller. Heights as an actual vitamin (brain supplement) was also a painkiller for people struggling with anxiety and focus. But for others, just taking it as a multivitamin or didn’t notice a difference from taking it, it was a vitamin and those were the people who cancelled with the cost of living crisis.
So how do you do that?
Becoming a painkiller
Well, that is why I started with the Product-Market Fit question. Those very disappointed are likely to see you as a painkiller. You follow that question with a second one:
2. Could you explain your answer?
You then want to interview those customers to understand their Jobs to be Done. That will help you adjust your messaging and targeting to find more painkiller customers.
Alternatively seeing why people answer Somewhat Disappointed can also give you insights into why you aren’t a must-have solution.
Recommendation
As you’ve probably realised, if you want to become a painkiller product, user research is key.
If you haven’t had experience with user research, please don’t worry. I recently released a course that has full guidance on conducting user interviews and even has a test interview example in it.
You can get it here for just £145:
I also walk through all the questions and how to ask them to understand your customers' Jobs to be Done.
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Now I’m off to enjoy one of my favourite painkiller products: coffee. I would definitely be very disappointed if I no longer had my home grinder and coffee machine from Sage.
Till next time,
Daphne