Can AI Improve Product / Market Fit?
Let's see what ZackGPT has to say about that!
When founders complain about “growth problems,” I usually nod politely and ask a few questions. “How often are users coming back?” “What’s your activation rate?” “What do people love about the product?” Nine times out of ten, it turns out they don’t have a growth problem at all—they have a product problem.
And if you’re honest, you might too.
I’ve seen this cycle across dozens of early-stage companies: a promising launch, a bit of press, a burst of traffic... and then crickets. The founders blame marketing, or “awareness,” or some mythical GTM channel they just haven’t cracked yet. But the truth is, users aren’t sticking because the product isn’t delivering enough value—at least not fast enough to matter.
This isn’t meant to shame you. It’s a common trap. In fact, it’s a rite of passage. But escaping it means shifting your mindset from “how do we get more users?” to “why don’t the users we have care more?”
Let’s unpack why this happens—and how to fix it.
The Myth of the Growth Hack
Startup culture has romanticized the growth hack: the scrappy, clever trick that suddenly drives tens of thousands of users. Dropbox’s referral loop. Airbnb reverse-engineering Craigslist. Facebook opening up to Ivy League schools.
What most people miss is that those tactics worked because the underlying product was already valuable. Dropbox solved a painful sync problem. Airbnb unlocked extra income. Facebook scratched the deepest itch of all—status and connection.
If your product isn’t creating value, no amount of growth hacking will save you. It’s like trying to scale a leaky bucket. You can pour water in faster, but you’re still leaking at the bottom.
The best growth strategy at the early stage is a great product that solves a real problem better than anything else. Period.
The Retention Litmus Test
Here’s the hard truth: if you can’t get 10 people to love your product, you won’t get 1,000 to like it.
Too many founders are chasing scale before they’ve earned it. They’re paying for ads, launching on Product Hunt, trying to optimize onboarding flows—meanwhile, their churn rate is 70% in week two.
Focus on retention first. Not vanity metrics like DAUs or signups—real retention. How many users come back after the first use? How many after the tenth? Are they using it because they love it, or because they have to?
If your retention is weak, your job is not to grow—it’s to understand why.
Talk to every single user. Watch their sessions. Ask what they were hoping for when they signed up, and whether the product delivered. If not, what was missing? You’ll learn more from ten in-depth user interviews than from a thousand new signups.
Find the Aha Moment (Then Accelerate It)
Every great product has an “aha moment”—the point when users finally get it. They feel the value. They shift from testing to using.
For Slack, it was sending a few team messages and seeing how fast and fluid it felt. For Notion, it was building a workspace that was less cluttered than Google Docs and more flexible than Trello.
You need to find your product’s aha moment—and then design your onboarding, activation, and early UX to get users there as fast as possible.
This might mean cutting features, simplifying flows, or rewriting all your copy. It’s worth it. Because until users hit that moment, you’re just another app.
Track how long it takes users to reach your aha moment. Then ask: how do we cut that time in half?
Value First, Monetization Later
One of the biggest mistakes I see is over-optimizing for monetization too early. Founders fret over pricing tiers, free trials, and upgrade paths—before they’ve proven their product delivers enough value to be worth paying for.
It’s backwards.
You don’t earn revenue by gating features. You earn it by solving problems. If your product saves someone 10 hours a week, or makes them more money, or helps them sleep better at night, they’ll gladly pay.
Until then, focus on value. Get people using it. Show them results. Then ask for money.
This doesn’t mean giving everything away for free forever. But early on, your priority should be proving indispensability—not maximizing ARPU.
Nail a Niche Before Going Broad
Another trap: trying to be everything to everyone. Your product supports sales teams, marketers, developers, teachers, dog groomers… and no one loves it.
Start narrow. Pick a user segment that really feels the pain your product solves. Go deep into their workflow. Obsess over their needs. Make something so useful that they become your evangelists.
Most great companies started this way. Facebook was just for Harvard students. Salesforce was for salespeople. Shopify was for indie e-commerce stores.
Find your beachhead. Dominate it. Then expand.
Metrics That Matter
Let’s get tactical for a moment. Here are the metrics you should care about at the early stage:
Activation rate: What % of users reach your aha moment within the first session or day?
7-day and 30-day retention: How many users come back? (Cohort analysis is your best friend.)
Engagement depth: How often do power users use the product? What features do they touch?
Referral/word of mouth: Are users telling others? Why or why not?
Don’t get distracted by surface metrics. Focus on signals of love, usage, and value.
The Brutal Simplicity of Value
Here’s a harsh but helpful framing: people only use products that make their lives better. That’s it.
If they’re not using your product, it’s because it doesn’t solve a painful enough problem, or it doesn’t solve it well enough, or it’s too confusing or slow or clunky.
Fix that.
Go back to first principles. Who is this for? What do they need? Why is this better? Test ruthlessly. Iterate fast. Cut what doesn’t matter. Polish what does.
Great products are simple, but getting there is anything but.
Build with the Few to Reach the Many
The early users who stick around, give you feedback, and push your product’s limits—they’re your co-founders in spirit. Treat them that way.
Build features for them. Fix their bugs. Get on Zoom calls. Obsess over their use cases. They are your best early signal of product-market fit.
When you make those users successful, two things happen:
They spread the word, organically.
You discover what real value looks like—which you can then scale.
It’s tempting to ignore the “few” because you’re dreaming about the “many.” Don’t. The few are the path to the many.
Final Thoughts
Startup success isn’t about velocity—it’s about direction. You can scale all the wrong things and end up nowhere fast.
Before you chase growth, make sure you’ve built something worth growing. That means solving a real problem for real people in a way that feels 10x better than the alternative.
If you’re not sure you’re there yet, good. That means you’re asking the right questions. Dig in. Talk to users. Ship changes. Be relentless.
Because once you do build something people love, growth gets a lot easier.
Not easy. But easier.
So back to the question: Can AI help you improve product market fit? Maybe it just did! I asked ChatGPT to write this post in my style. How did it do? Let me know in the comments below.