product-market-fit

Overview

Based on The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen. Olsen's PMF Pyramid is a structured framework for diagnosing and improving product-market fit. The pyramid has five layers - each layer must be solid before the next one matters. Most teams skip to layer 4 or 5 (features, UX) when the real problem is layer 1 or 2 (wrong customer, wrong need).

The PMF Pyramid (bottom to top):

1. Target customer
2. Underserved needs
3. Value proposition
4. Feature set
5. UX

Workflow

Step 1: Validate the target customer (Layer 1)

Who exactly is this product for? Be specific:

• Demographics or firmographics
• Behavior patterns (what do they do today?)
• Psychographics (what do they care about?)