Article

Measure and improve product/market fit with the 40% test

Reforge Freemium Intermediate

This is a clean, practical writeup of the same 40% test methodology, with more detail on how to segment survey respondents after the fact to find your strongest fit customers. It's a good companion to the original Superhuman essay if you want the process spelled out as a checklist rather than a narrative. Useful once you already have the survey results in hand and need to know what to do with them; full detail may require a Reforge account.

  • Run the very disappointed survey question, then segment the responses immediately
  • Build for the segment that's already very disappointed, not the average respondent
  • Retest periodically since your PMF segment shifts as the product changes

The question it answers

  1. How do I use the customers I already have to sharpen my ideal customer profile instead of guessing?

Read with it

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  2. Market size is meaningless until you know exactly who you're for, and Lenny turns that into a concrete, repeatable ICP exercise... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to identify your ideal customer profile (ICP) Lenny Rachitsky
  3. The best book on positioning against competitors by understanding the alternatives customers actually consider. Directly turns... aprildunford.com Book · ~200 pages Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April Dunford
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  5. Seibel's whole point is that a market only counts once real customers are grabbing the product as fast as you can make it and... Michael Seibel (Y Combinator) Essay · ~4 min read The Real Product Market Fit Michael Seibel
  6. If you would rather hear the thinking than read it, this is Rahul Vohra on Lenny's Podcast talking through the same... Lenny's Podcast Podcast Superhuman's secret to success: ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every user, and positioning around one attribute | Rahul Vohra Lenny Rachitsky
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