The PMF survey asks: 'How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?' If 40%+ of active users say 'Very Disappointed', you likely have product-market fit. A leading indicator that correlates strongly with long-term retention and growth.
When assessing whether you have found PMF, before investing heavily in growth and scaling.
- Survey active users only: 'How would you feel if you could no longer use this product?'
- Options: Very Disappointed / Somewhat Disappointed / Not Disappointed / N/A
- Also ask: 'What is the main benefit you get?' and 'Who else would benefit most?'
- Target: ≥40% answering 'Very Disappointed'
- Segment results by user type — you may have strong PMF with one segment and weak with another
- Read the 'Very Disappointed' responses — they describe the real value your product delivers
Early Spotify survey: among heavy music listeners in Sweden and the UK — >50% 'Very Disappointed.' Among casual listeners — ~25% 'Very Disappointed.' This told Spotify to focus early marketing and product investment on music enthusiasts, not casual listeners. The enthusiasts would do the word-of-mouth work to bring in the casuals.
Please contact the author for more information on these examples at linkedin.com/in/kshitijrege
- Surveying all registered users instead of genuinely active users — inactive users depress the score
- Stopping at the score — the written responses about 'main benefit' are the actionable insight
- Interpreting 40% as a hard binary pass/fail — it is a directional signal, not a rule
- Hacking Growth — Sean Ellis
- Lean Analytics — Croll & Yoskovitz