According to Wikipedia, Product/market fit, also known as product-market fit, is the degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand. Product/market fit has been identified as a first step to building a successful venture in which the company meets early adopters, gathers feedback and gauges interest in its product(s).

I recently came across an interesting discussion of how Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, came to establish product/market fit for his company:

For those looking to establish product/market fit for their company, Brian's story offers a few interesting lessons. The most obvious lesson is that the technology you are developing may not if fact have good product/market fit and it is only after you talk to early users that you can determine if it does or not. If Brian didn't talk to his early users to find out why they were abandoning his wallet, he would have never discovered the additional feature he needed to develop, the "Buy Bitcoin" button, in order to establish product market fit. Establishing product/market fit in this case was not so much a pivot away from what he was doing as an evolution of what he was doing to incorporate a new and necessary feature. He still needed the wallet but he needed something more to differentiate his offering and make it successful.

It is also interesting that Brian's insight into product market fit came from getting the stories of those who gave up on the platform and why. Understanding what was required to keep users from abandoning his technology was the key to figuring out product/market fit. In the early days, understanding the negative signals can be more important for establishing product/market fit than looking for positive signals.