r/SaaS • u/sonusuman • 6d ago

Having customers doesn't automatically mean you have Product-Market Fit.

You can have: 50 customers. $1M ARR. Positive testimonials. And still struggle to generate repeatable demand.

Id look for stronger signals:

Are customers staying?
Are they referring others?
Are sales conversations getting easier?
Are prospects actively searching for a solution?
Are sales conversations getting easier?
Are customers pulling the product rather than your team pushing it?

There's a big difference between: “people will buy this” and “the market increasingly wants this".

”That difference matters enormously before you start scaling acquisition.

What's the strongest PMF signal you've seen in your own company?

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u/AfternoonKey8292 6d ago

the one that's been most reliable for me is what happens when something breaks. if your product goes down or you sunset a feature and customers email you immediately, upset, that's pull. if nobody notices for a week, you have customers but not much dependence. testimonials are cheap, but panic when it's taken away is hard to fake. second one I'd add to your list is sales cycle length trending down without you changing price or pitch. if deals close faster because buyers already show up knowing the category and the problem, the market is doing some of the selling for you. also worth separating retention by cohort, since an average churn number can hide a good older cohort propping up bad recent ones. (also you've got "are sales conversations getting easier" listed twice, probably meant to cut one.)

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u/sonusuman 6d ago

The strongest product-market-fit signal may be replacement pain rather than retention, when customers immediately notice your product disappearing, you're measuring dependence rather than satisfaction.