Should You Send Product-Market Fit surveys?

I was listening to Rob Walling's podcast episode with Noah Kagan when this phrase popped up: "How do you know you got Product-Market Fit? You know!" Followed by "You don't need to send a survey."

I'm not so sure about the last part, though. I'm light years behind Rob and Noah in terms of experience and achievements. So, treat this as my attempt to understand if there's an argument to back this up that I'm not seeing. Or maybe Rob did not actually mean this at all, but it was more the idea that you shouldn't bet everything based on the PMF score.

Anyway, in any business, there are numerous variables. The same product would work for one and fail for the next. Some will strike gold with their product positioning and witness the PMF in their MRR reports and the need to scale their infrastructure and frontline support team; others will be left wondering what went wrong.

PMF is just a tool, exactly as a hammer is. You can use it to build a house, or you can use it to break things. It's the goal that matters and the hand that is using this tool.

It's not uncommon for businesses to find themselves serving a general audience. Somehow everyone found their way to your product, and now everyone is demanding your full and undivided attention. Sure, go ahead and check your analytics, see where they're coming from, and review your product positioning on your website, in your marketing materials, on your blog, etc. Maybe this will clarify things and help you steer the ship in the right direction. Maybe not.

In any case, you have another tool in your toolkit—PMF survey. The score itself is not a failproof indicator of PMF.

Just a quick off-topic on a subject that I might get back to in a later article: The same as a high NPS doesn't mean things are going smooth. It's the trend line that you're looking for. Everything else is an instrument to help you frame the context, results, and next steps.

Back to the PMF. Conducting the survey might just help you understand who from your general audience stays with you because you're offering a cheaper product, they've done bad vendor research initially and now they're stuck with you for a whole year, or your copy and positioning are misleading or confusing; or who actually needs and uses your product to solve their problem (and not using it in twisted ways to improvise a solution to their problem).

And that's pretty much it. Sure, you might get a high PMF score for a specific segment of your audience, and after investing more resources into bringing in clients in that segment, you would notice that there is no interest in your product there. Maybe the survey results were biased, maybe they were your clients for a long time and they've already tailored their processes to your product, and they've actually resorted to a different vendor to solve their initial problem. Maybe. But at least you have an instrument that, even if slightly, increases your chances of getting it right next time.

So, if you hear someone saying that you will know when you have PMF, they are 100% right. But why not increase your chances of getting there?

I might be wrong, though, so I would love to hear counterarguments.