Navigating Product-Market Fit: 7 Lessons Learned from Building ExperiRace

Lesson 1: Understand Problem-Market Fit Before Product-Market Fit

Before diving into product-market fit (PMF), it's crucial to grasp problem-market fit. You might have a brilliant solution to a problem that people would love you to solve, and they would use what you built for them. However, not every problem is worth solving—at least not in a way that pays off. It's a good sign if there's genuine interest, but if there's no alignment between the problem you're solving and the market's willingness to pay for a solution, building a product around it may not be viable as a business.

Lesson 2: Perceived Value Must Outweigh Pain

PMF means you've solved a problem or created value that outweighs the pain for your users. Pain equals the combination of: cost, time, and risk that comes from using your product. If the perceived value is greater than the perceived pain, users will try your product. If the actual value holds up to indeed be greater after the first use, they'll stick around and become repeat users. Repeat usage is a mandatory pre-condition that you have found PMF.

Lesson 3: A Repeat User is Not the Same as a Repeat Customer

Repeat user uses your product again and again, but not always they are the ones paying you. A repeat customer gives you something in return, most typically money. A repeat user might become a repeat customer, like in a freeware setup, or maybe there is another player in between that would pay, like in a B2B2C setup. This transaction validates that your product provides enough value to support your business. In B2B customers usually pay with money, in B2C, it could be screen time or data, that you monetize in another way, but the principle is the same: someone must pay for the value you generate for them so you can keep doing it.

Lesson 4: Prioritize Value, Then Viability, Feasibility, and Usability

First, ensure your product creates value that leads to repeat customers. Validate this end-to-end. Don't move on to develop feasibility, or usability before you can see there is repeat usage form customers that creates viable value for your business. Only when you got the first "viable repeat usage", start discovering if it can be a viable and feasible to scale. Usability is crucial but i put it last as it is least risky, and can often be improved with a good methodology and team.

Lesson 5: Beware of Risky Assumptions About Your Market

We mistakenly assumed that validating value for runners and fans would translate to value for organizers. This false assumption cost us time and effort. Always validate value directly with your actual customers, not just end users.

Lesson 6: Start with One Repeat Customer

At the start, focus on one repeat customer who provides value in return. This validates your market and helps you build traction. Prove this segment is big enough to support a viable business before scaling up and pitching to investors.

Lesson 7: High Frequency of Use Accelerates Learning

High frequency of use accelerates learning and later product-led growth. In our case, many organizers have races only once every few months, which delayed our ability to test and learn from repeat usage, or lack of. what they say after first usage, is not a guarantee to what they will actually do when the time comes. Products with more frequent use cycles allow you to iterate faster, gather more feedback, and achieve PMF sooner.

Writing and reading this now, it all seems so obvious. But that's the trick with product development—it's not about the theory, it's about having the discipline and self-reflection to apply that theory, and not letting go of pursuing the most important things first.

Let me know if any of this is similar to challenges you faced with before, would be great to exchange point of views about this important topic.