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Welcome to the 11th issue of The Street Smart Edge, the free version of my newsletter, Street Smart Product Manager, to help you boost your confidence, stay focused, and reconnect with what really matters. Upgrade to a paid subscription or Inner Circle Membership for in-depth practical insights, templates, and career development toolkits to transform your impact and how stakeholders perceive your value.
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Product Management is full of empty metrics.
We focus on things that make us feel good, but don't actually tell us if our product is succeeding.
Usage. Engagement. Customer compliments. To name a few.
Sure, these can be useful indicators. But ultimately, they don’t tell us if our product is actually succeeding.
We do this because we’re under the mistaken belief we don’t directly impact revenue. So we hide behind these proxies.
The other reason we adopt them is because we blindly accept whatever Silicon Valley has told us to accept.
One of the most misleading ones is "Product/Market Fit" (PMF).
Silicon Valley VCs made PMF famous. They told founders it was the first big win — the magical moment where growth takes off like a “mighty hockey stick curve.”
Founders pushed PM teams accordingly and soon the goal of every new product initiative became to achieve PMF.
This may make sense for VCs, but PMF doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Product Managers or Founders, because it's not measurable nor actionable.
The Cold, Hard Facts about PMF
It is a mirage we keep chasing.
It is not measurable.
It is not actionable.
It ignores the huge differences between business models, markets, and industries.
What matters for a social media app is different from a payments platform. What’s key for B2C is different from B2B.
The Only Question That Matters
Product success comes down to 1 simple question:
Does it make money?
This is what we must focus on. When you speak to executives, they’re looking for a clear return to the business. This return can be in the form of:
Revenue
Cost savings
Margin
Return on Investment (ROI)
This is true for new products and new features. This may be directly or indirectly. Maybe there are 2-3 hops to get there. But, at the end of the day, it needs to generate a clear return to the business.
Product success is about whether the underlying business model is viable and sustainable.
You can look at this in stages:
At each stage, you need to measure customer commitment behavior.
If you’re chasing some 2nd or 3rd level product metric, you need to know how it connects back up to revenue and ROI.
If you’re not tying your metrics back to real customer commitment and ROI metrics, you’re product is likely to fail.
Here’s a simple rule:
If it doesn’t change a customer decision, it’s not evidence.
I partnered with Ryan Cantwell on an episode of Street Smart Product Manager Live! to unpack this and teach you how to measure true product success.
Give it a watch to discover a better operating system for measuring product success and traction:
Ryan shares a simple test to find clear signals to drive product decisions, called the Minimum Viable Evidence.
He provides a simple plan you can do in just 7 days:
Pick one segment: Choose a specific customer segment you can actually reach in the next 7 days to focus your experiment on. Don’t try to boil the ocean.
Pick one brittle gate: Identify the single biggest drop-off point in your customer’s journey where traction is leaking. Is it setup friction? Time-to-first-value? Renewal hesitation? Find the leak.
Run one experiment: Design a quick test to learn more about that brittle gate. Pass or fail doesn’t matter — you’ll learn.
Listen to the Debate
I called out this corporate astrology on PMF on a recent episode of The Product Porch podcast. Listen here:
You can also listen on:
Key Takeaways
Product success is measured monetarily. Your job is to prove the business model viable and sustainable.
Commitment beats compliments and vanity metrics. Seek real signals — money, time, resources, social capital. Not just good vibes and anecdotal evidence.
Use MVEs (Minimum Viable Experiments) — small simple tests to force your customer target to show real purchasing behavior.
Ground your metrics. Use metrics that fit your product stage and business type.
Share the proof. Always showcase the data that backs up your product’s financial success.
That’s it for today.
Have a joyful week, and, if you can, make it joyful for someone else too.
cheers,
shardul
Here are 4 ways I can help you today:
Strategy Design Workshop: Transform scattered priorities into clear, actionable direction. I’ll facilitate your team through a customized workshop to align stakeholders and create strategies that actually get executed instead of forgotten. Book a call.
Product Management Audit: Get a clear picture of what’s working and what’s holding your team back. Through a systematic analysis, I’ll evaluate your strategy, processes, roles, metrics, and culture. You’ll walk away a practical set of findings and actionable recommendations to strengthen your product organization. Book a call.
Corporate Training: Elevate your entire product organization. I’ll teach your team how to think and act strategically, craft outcome-driven roadmaps, and dramatically improve how they deliver measurable results that matter to your business. Book a call.
Improv Based Team Building Workshop: Boost creativity, trust, and collaboration through improv. Your team will problem-solve faster and work better together. Book a call.
Shardul Mehta
I ❤️ product managers
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