How I got product-market fit with my AI product

There is no doubt that the first thing we want to achive as entrepreneurs is to get product-market fit (PMF) for our products. Once we reach it, then it is easier because we have validated our product (we know what the market is and who the customer is).

And how do you know you got PMF? For me, it is when you have your first paying clients.

I spent two weeks to validate my product. I bulit it before validation, which is something that it is not usually recommended, but for one reason: there was already market, but I thought I could do best than competitors.

My project is Post BrAIner, a tool where you can create posts optimized for SEO in seconds using AI and upload them directly onto your blogs.

The validation consisted in 3 steps:

Step 1: share my product in AI directories and other pages

I have no own audience, so if I wanted to validate it quick, I had to use "third party audiences". I created an account in every directory of AI products I found, and some of them got some visits.

But what really supposed a great hit was when I launched my product in Product Hunt. But not for the visitors I got from launching (I finished as 18th product of the day), but for the other pages and newsletters that shared my product to other interested users.

In these days I got 2,000+ visits and 200+ sign ups. But no one paid :(

Step 2: asked for feedback to current users

One common mistake many entrepreneurs have is that we think our product is perfect. I thought it in other products I have launched before, but I have learned from my mistakes.

So, a few days after my PH launch, I asked all my users to give me feedback of the platform.

More than 10 of them answered and gave me a very honest feedback of what I should change in Post BrAIner to be a better tool, and I got to work.

Just one week after that I incorporated all the features my users wanted, and I informed them by email.

Step 3: newsletter

Just like you don´t go to bed with the first person you meet (unless you are desperate), you don´t buy the first time you find a product. You need to know him/her as much as you need to know a little bit about the product.

That is why I though that a newsletter to the current users to say all the benefits and features my product have could be a good way for them to know my product.

I wrote 14 emails and started a campaign for every of the users who signed up. Many of them unsubscribed because they only signed up to the tool to test it, but a few others click to the call to action in all the emails.

The last email of the secuence was a 20% discount in the first purchase of the tool, and just a few minutes after I sent the email, I got this first client. I was extremely excited, I felt so good that someone could find useful the tool I had built!

During that day and the next 2 I got others susbscriptions, I felt like I got PMF finally!

After that I have optimized my marketing strategy and got few more users and subscription, but it was thanks to this PMF process that now I am more confident that my product really help people automate their content creation.

I hope you find my story to PMF interesting and motivational to a few of you who are looking PMF for their products!

Thanks for reading :)