A business finds product-market fit when they have evidence that their product solves a real problem for people—and they’re willing to pay for it. The process of finding product-market fit looks different for every business, but it seeks the same signal: clear evidence that people want to buy your product.
For Anthony Barresi, cofounder of compostable straw brand Pasta Life, that signal came when he presented an early version of the product to local bars and restaurants. “That’s where the lightbulb moment happened,” Anthony says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “Operators of those businesses said, ’This is genius. How do I purchase?’”
In this guide, we’ll show you what it looks like to find product-market fit—with real-life examples—and share strategies for finding that crucial signal for your business.
What is product-market fit?
Product-market fit is when your product meets real demand in the market, and you can prove it in the form of sales and positive customer feedback. You get there by testing your ideas, listening to customers, and developing clear product marketing that communicates your value proposition in a way that resonates with customers.
Product-market fit isn’t something you nail once and forget about. It shifts as your customers’ needs change.
For example, Tique Chandler started Chandler Honey, a Canadian raw honey company, because the premium honey products she saw didn’t look aesthetically pleasing. But as Chandler Honey has grown, Tique has seen customers become more specific about the ingredients they want in their honey.
“It’s not enough to have raw honey,” she says on Shopify Masters. “There are more specialty [ingredients] that you wouldn’t have heard of five years ago, like ashwagandha …, ginseng, royal jelly. It pushes you a little bit [to] tap into these trends and use these really educated customers to find a product that really speaks to them.”
Based on this information, Chandler Honey launched a product called Super Honey in October 2025. Super Honey includes organic raw honey, turmeric, black pepper, ginger, ashwagandha, pollen, and ginseng.
Signs you’ve found product-market fit
There are a few signs that show your product is resonating with your audience:
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Preorders. Before you launch your product, a critical mass of preorders signals product-market fit.
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Organic growth. After you launch, if you see organic growth through word of mouth, it shows you could have product-market fit. It means that customers find your products so useful or necessary they are recommending it to others.
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Revenue growth. Consistent revenue growth shows that your success is repeatable.
Signs you haven’t reached product-market fit
Without product-market fit, it’s hard to grow sustainably. Here are a few signs to look out for:
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High churn. Customer churn measures the percentage of customers who cancel a subscription in a specific time period. High churn can show that customers aren’t satisfied with a product.
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Slow growth. If your growth is flat or sluggish, it can be a sign that your product doesn’t solve a need in the market.
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Poor reviews. Poor reviews show customers’ dissatisfaction with your products.
Why product-market fit matters for your business
Product-market fit can be an early sign that your business will succeed. Some businesses choose to test their product-market fit before they spend time and money on inventory. For example, Selom Agbitor and Oliver Zak, cofounders of tattoo aftercare brand Mad Rabbit, started a website, ran ads, and took orders before having a physical product.
“I wanted to make sure there was a product-market fit before we spent time cooking tattoo balm in Oliver’s college apartment,” Selom says on Shopify Masters. “Within the first week of running ads, orders started coming through. So we were like, ’OK, there’s a proof of concept right there. It’s valid.’”
Proving product-market fit is useful if you seek outside investment. For Aishwarya Iyer, founder of olive oil brand Brightland, it was a nonnegotiable. “I really wanted to prove product-market fit to myself … before going and bringing on somebody else’s money because I took it really seriously,” she says on Shopify Masters. “I didn’t want to take it on before I was totally sure there was something here.”
As her business continued to grow and she needed to hire more staff, she felt comfortable looking for investors that could help accelerate the growth of Brightland.
Examples of product-market fit in action
These brands found their sweet spot by solving real customers’ problems:
LatchLight
When Julie Carty became a mom, she hit a wall with nighttime feedings. She found that top-rated bedside lamps were either too harsh—waking up the whole family—or too dim to see clearly.
Julie decided to fill this gap by creating LatchLight, a wearable, soft-glow light made for nighttime baby feedings. It directs light right to where you need it, glows in the dark so you can find it easily, and keeps your hands free for feedings.
Julie created prototypes and gave them to parents, doulas, grandparents, and lactation consultants to get their thoughts. “The feedback was, by and large, that this was a game-changer for them and a super helpful tool. That’s when I decided to move forward,” Julie says on Shopify Masters.
Hero Packaging
Anaita Sakar, cofounder of Hero Packaging, tested product-market fit for her waterproof, compostable shipping bags by running search ads and offering a free sample: “We targeted people on Google, so we were hitting anyone that was typing in ’sustainable packaging’ with a landing page and they would get a free sample,” Anaita says on Shopify Masters. “We thought we were going to get about 30 or 40 sign-ups for free samples, and in a week we got a thousand people.”
That test showed Hero’s founders there was already a sizable audience looking for a solution like what they envisioned: packaging that was better for the environment, but still waterproof.
Glamnetic
A few years after graduating college, Ann McFerran, founder of magnetic eyelash and press-on nails brand Glamnetic, wanted to launch a business that she felt passionate about. She started looking into magnetic lashes. “I noticed a lot of my friends didn’t know how to apply lashes,” Ann says on Shopify Masters. “I was like, ’Why is there nothing on the market that solved this problem?’”
While magnetic lashes existed, they weren’t easy to use. Ann conducted research to learn what was on the market. She identified two things she wanted to do differently: Amagnetic eyeliner (which keeps eyelashes in place) that came in liquid form instead of a pot and eyelashes that were more glamorous.
She created prototypes and sent them to friends to make sure she was on the right rack. “That really helped,” she says. “By the final prototype, when I handed it to somebody … they were literally freaking out. They were like, ’This is the craziest beauty product I’ve ever tried.’ It got me so excited and so much more confident about my own product.”
This product led to Glamnetic making $50 million in revenue in its first year.
How to find product-market fit
- Start with a simple visualization exercise
- Adapt to the market
- Prove your product concept
- Use customer feedback to shape your product
- Use language your customers use
- Leave room for change
Finding product-market fit takes work, but you don’t have to figure it out alone. Use this framework for nailing product-market fit:
1. Start with a simple visualization exercise
Andrew Chen, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of The Cold Start Problem, recommends a simple exercise to start your journey to product-market fit: Picture a reusable coffee cup.
A coffee cup has clear features—it holds hot liquids, has a handle so you don’t burn yourself, and lasts through repeated washing. The clarity means it has product-market fit; people instantly understand what it does and why they need it.
Now apply this same thinking to your product idea using this product clarity template:
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Purpose. Define your product’s main function in one sentence.
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Key features. List three core features customers immediately understand.
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What makes it different. Identify differentiators that set your product apart from what’s already available.
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Simplicity check. Could someone new to your product instantly grasp its main benefit?
If your answers aren’t as clear or obvious as those for a coffee cup, go back to your concept. Consider simplifying your features or sharpening your messaging until your target audience can instantly understand the problem your product solves and why it matters.
2. Adapt to the market
Finding—and maintaining—product-market fit requires that you adapt your product to meet those needs. Even the most brilliant product won’t succeed without a market that’s ready for it.
Elad Burko, founder and CEO of accessory business Paperwallet, emphasizes the need to adapt to the market. “You mold your product to fit a market by listening to the market,” Elad says on Shopify Masters. “Listen to your customers. Take your product to the customer, try to sell it to them. Understand what’s important to them, what’s not important to them. If there are features in your product that the customer doesn’t care about, get rid of them.”
Frameworks like a SWOT analysis, which identifies a business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, can help clarify how your product aligns with your intended market.
3. Prove your product concept
When you create your minimum viable product (MVP) and are ready to share your product idea, you need to prove that customers want to buy what you’ve built. There are a few methods you can use.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is a low-barrier way to try out your idea and see how the market responds. If people are willing to fund your product development, you know you’ve found product-market fit.
Elad of Paperwallet recommends putting your products on Kickstarter to test your market. Even if your product doesn’t hit your goal the first round, you’ll gain a base of backers you can tap into to help you get it right.
“It was an amazing way to connect to people who are passionate about what you’re doing with your product,” Elad says. “[They are] willing to give you the feedback that you need, be it positive or negative. You interact with them so that you can grow [and] improve. And that’s invaluable to a business.”
Survey followers
Organic marketing channels are a free way to get feedback from your social media followers. The cofounders of Not Basics, formerly Pantee, used Instagram to connect with potential customers for their sustainable fashion brand that turned deadstock t-shirts into underwear.
When they had about 400 Instagram followers, cofounders and sisters Katie and Amanda McCourt sent direct messages via Typeform asking questions about their audience’s favorite underwear style, prices they were willing to pay for underwear, and sustainable clothing.
“We managed to pull amazing insights from nearly 200 women,” Katie says. “It was amazing how many people were ready and waiting to give their thoughts and feedback and see a product come to life that they genuinely wanted.”
Synthetic audiences
If you don’t have the resources to conduct a live focus group, you can use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to conduct virtual focus groups with synthetic audiences—that is, audiences simulated with AI.
In a virtual focus group, AI-generated personas, modeled to replicate personas within your audience, give feedback on product ideas. AI-based focus group tools are significantly less expensive than real focus groups. They might also help you avoid some of the pitfalls of live focus groups, such as one louder voice pressuring others or being limited by a small sample size.
4. Use customer feedback to shape your product
To develop a product your audience loves, seek their feedback and listen to their perspective. Then, act on it. Good Girl Snacks, for example, adjusts their products based on what they hear from customers. “We’re always taking in customer feedback and adjusting accordingly,” cofounder Leah Marcus says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “Based on feedback, we decided to switch to smaller gherkin cucumbers for pickles. They’re smaller. They’re crunchier. They’re saltier.”
The brand closed the feedback loop by launching its new and improved product and sharing the news with its customers on Instagram.
To collect feedback from your audience, you can use customer surveys, live chat tools such as Shopify Inbox, online reviews, and social listening tools.
5. Use language your customers use
Your marketing messaging is also part of the product-market fit equation. Even if your product reflects the needs and wants of your audience, if you don’t communicate about it in a way your audience understands, they might pass you up.
Body care brand Bushbalm learned this lesson by attending events in the early days of the company. Their products target razor burn, ingrown hairs, and dark spots. But their original messaging didn’t communicate their value proposition to customers.
“People would come in and we’d say, ’Oh, we’re here. We’re Bushbalm. We’re pubic oil,’” says David Gaylord, CEO and cofounder of the brand, on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “And people would go, ’I don’t know. That’s a pass.’ And they move on.”
As the weekend progressed and they talked to more people, the team came up with more appealing words. “We said, ’Bikini line skin care,’ and people said, ’OK, I know exactly what that is,’” David says. “We realized if we did an ad that said public oil or pubic hair, no one wanted it. But bikini line skin care is very positive.”
There are several ways to get feedback on your marketing message:
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Meet potential customers in person. Bring your product to farmers markets, trade shows, or other events, and gather feedback on how you present your products.
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Use social media to gauge reception. If you build a customer base organically, you’ll have a free way to see how people respond to your product positioning.
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A/B test different messages on paid channels. Paid advertising lets you test different types of messaging against each other to understand what clicks with your target market.
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Give out samples. If your employees, coworkers, or friends are part of your target market, give them samples of your new product and ask what they think. If the language they use to describe the product doesn’t match your messaging, you might need to adjust.
6. Leave room for change
Once you find initial product-market fit, the work doesn’t stop. Keep an entrepreneurial mindset and be open to tweaking your product and messaging to maintain product-market fit even as the market shifts or your customers want different things.
“I always want to make sure that we refresh and stay consistent with language that’s really competitive,” says Roxana Ontiveros, product marketing lead at skin care brand Topicals. “Maybe we need to update claims testing or maybe we need to do repackaging or really work on optimizing our product pages.”
Industry-specific considerations
The strategies and challenges you’ll face when trying to find product-market fit depend on whether you’re launching a physical product, offering a service, or building a subscription business:
Product-market fit for physical products
Businesses selling physical products often cannot change direction quickly compared to other types of businesses, thanks to inventory, manufacturing, supply chain, and delivery considerations.
To achieve product-market fit for physical products:
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Prototype and test early. Get real prototypes in front of customers fast to gather feedback you can act on. Digital whiteboard brand Hearth Display created prototypes to learn how its products could help families plan their schedules.
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Manage production risk. Start with smaller production runs to validate demand before committing to large-scale manufacturing. Ann of Glamnetic started with 100 products per item when she started her business to minimize risk.
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Iterate based on customer insights. Adjust your design, features, or packaging based on what customers tell you. Protein snack brand Elavi changed its packaging after customers said they wanted more product in jars.
Product-market fit for service businesses
Service businesses can use service-market fit to determine if there’s a market for their company.
To achieve product-market fit for services:
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Start with a minimum viable service (MVS). An MVS is the least your service can offer to prove its value to your target market.
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Work with clients. As you work closely with clients, sometimes one on one, think about how to refine and ultimately productize your service.
Product-market fit for subscription-based businesses
Subscription-based businesses rely on recurring revenue, which means product-market fit means delivering ongoing value that keeps customers subscribed.
For these businesses, retention matters just as much as acquisition. Having customers who sign up but cancel after a month is a signal that you haven’t found product-market fit. You need to show that your product continues to meet customer needs over time and justifies the continued investment.
To achieve product-market fit in a subscription-based business:
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Track churn closely. High churn rates often signal a mismatch between your offering and customer expectations.
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Focus on early retention. Optimize onboarding to help customers see value fast.
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Deliver continuous value. Whether through new content, updated features, or added services, show you’re committed to meeting evolving customer needs.
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Use feedback loops to improve. Survey customers regularly and monitor behavior to fine-tune your offering and address pain points quickly.
How to measure product-market fit
There’s no single metric that proves you’ve found product-market fit. Instead, look at multiple metrics that signal you’re on the right track:
Sales
The best gauge of product-market fit is whether people buy your product. Beyond your gross sales, look for:
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Products selling out consistently
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High repeat purchase rates
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Low return rates
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Organic sales growth without heavy paid marketing
If your product moves steadily and customer enthusiasm grows without constant advertising or promotions, you’ve found market resonance.
Conversion rate
Your product page conversion rate offers another useful indicator. Topical’s Roxana suggests looking at how many people visit your product description page (PDP), read it, and then buy.
To encourage conversion, your PDP should communicate the problem your product solves, who it’s for, and what makes it different. High conversion rates signal that your messaging clicks with what your target audience wants and needs.
Shopify Analytics gives you insight into your conversion rate.
Net Promoter Score
Your Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures how likely customers are to recommend your product to a friend, typically on a scale from 0 to 10. While NPS primarily tracks customer satisfaction and loyalty, it can also signal product-market fit, especially when combined with other metrics.
You can track NPS through surveys, so you can use a tool like Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey.
NPS isn’t a measure of product-market fit on its own. For example, coffee brand Copper Cow Coffee had a high NPS score, but customers weren’t consistently purchasing the coffee throughout the year. Founder Debbie Wei Mullin learned from customers that they viewed the original pour-over coffee as a special occasion treat.
“That was when we decided, ’Well how can we become more of an everyday coffee?’” Debbie says on Shopify Masters. “As soon as we got the ground coffee on shelves, that had triple the velocity.”
Retention metrics
Customer retention shows people aren’t just trying your product once—they’re coming back because it delivers consistent value.
Tracking retention metrics helps you understand whether your product meets long-term customer needs. Look at repeat purchase rates, subscription renewals, or monthly active users, depending on your business model. If these numbers grow steadily (or stay high), your product has staying power in the market.
Customer retention strategies like personalized follow-up emails, loyalty programs, and exceptional customer service can reinforce value and deepen audience relationships. But even the best retention strategies won’t work unless you’ve nailed product-market fit. Customers won’t stick around for a product that doesn’t solve their problem.
High retention often reflects that you’ve reached the right audience, solved the right pain point, and created a product people can’t live without.
Word-of-mouth indicators
Organic referrals, social media mentions, and glowing reviews are word-of-mouth indicators that people love your product enough to recommend it. This might look like customers explaining the benefit your product provides without prompting, repeated praise for specific features, and growing organic interest.
You can track word-of-mouth impact by monitoring:
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Referral program participation
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Social media shares and tags
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Positive reviews and testimonials
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Direct customer input about how they found the brand (e.g., “My friend told me about this.”)
The cofounders of electronic toothbrush brand Suri use an app called Fairing to conduct post-purchase surveys and learn how customers found out about them.
*Based on a 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with two or more years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.
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Product-market fit FAQ
What is a good product-market fit score?
There’s no single metric that proves product-market fit, but a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of six or higher can indicate some degree of it. What matters more is the combination of metrics—strong retention, organic growth, and passionate customer feedback all together paint a clearer picture than any single number.
What are good examples of product-market fit?
Strong product-market fit examples include LatchLight creating a wearable night light for parents that addressed a real pain point or Hero Packaging proving demand for their products via sign-ups for free samples.
How do you know if your product hasn’t achieved product-market fit?
Warning signs include low sales, high customer acquisition costs, no repeat purchases, and high rates of cancellation (for subscription businesses). If you’re working harder to get people interested—rather than customers naturally spreading the word—you probably haven’t found fit yet.
What does product-market fit mean?
Product-market fit means your product solves a real problem for a specific group of people, and they’re buying it, using it, and recommending it to others. It’s the point where your product meets strong market demand, and growth starts happening more naturally through satisfied customers and word of mouth.
Does product-market fit guarantee success?
Product-market fit alone isn’t enough to grow your business successfully. A 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants* revealed that high-revenue businesses (more than $1 million) waited to scale until they had strong teams in place, expanded production capacity, and availability of investment capital—not just customer demand. Product-market fit validates opportunity, but financial foundation and operational readiness determine whether scaling succeeds or stalls.
How do you measure product-market fit?
You measure product-market fit by looking at both qualitative feedback and key performance metrics. Start by listening to your customers: Do they say your product solves a real problem? Are they coming back for more and telling others about it? Then look at the data:
- Repeat purchases or retention rates
- Conversion rates on your product pages
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- Organic referrals and word-of-mouth growth
