You can't talk about starting vs scaling without talking about product-market fit. And that's how this session unfolded.
Held at Antler and supported by UXArmy, we had a discussion with the community, joined by Farzikha Soerono, Head of Product Development at Bank Saqu.
"When your customer starts complaining about price, that is actually a good thing. It means they already see the value. Now they are just deciding if it is worth it."
Product metrics matter more during starting; business metrics matter more during scaling — but watch both. When business metrics slip, go back to the product metrics.
What we took away
On starting a product
- •Starting a product is all about getting to product-market fit
- •With AI, building is faster and easier. The classic approach is to talk to customers before you build, but AI now makes it viable to build 10 things quickly and see which one sticks
- •Selling a product is typically more challenging than what we thought, especially in SaaS, where the person using the product and the person signing the contract are rarely the same
- •Find early adopters in existing communities, be it offline or online (LinkedIn, X, and Reddit). AI tools are increasingly useful for finding leads too
Signs of product-market fit
- •There is a shift in the sales conversation: you are being considered alongside competitors, and pricing has now become a consideration. This means customers already see the value of the product and are now weighing the benefits and costs
- •Your chosen metric has grown beyond what you expected, though finding the right metric to track is half the work
- •Growth is now constrained by the product itself, not by awareness or sales. That is a sign demand has outpaced what you have built
On scaling a product
- •Scaling begins once you have a product-market fit
- •User growth is an easy thing to fixate on, but look beyond it. Some metrics are universal such as unit economics, CAC and LTV ratio; some can be quite specific such as revenue per employee
- •To identify your potential scaling problem, find out what breaks when your key metric grows. That is your bottleneck
- •There is no single answer to whether scaling means acquiring more customers or deepening usage with existing ones
- •Product metrics matter more during starting; business metrics matter more during scaling, but watch both. When business metrics slip, go back to the product metrics
Skills that matter most when starting
- •Articulating a clear problem statement
- •Resilience when your idea gets challenged
- •Openness to new insights and input from others
- •Managing ambiguity and chaos
Skills that matter most when scaling
- •Identifying and committing to the right metrics
- •Stakeholder management: knowing when to say no, when to push back, and when to push through