cohort retention rate is the most important product market fit metric

When a product has “product market fit”, it means that the product is good enough to start shifting focus from improving the product to growing distribution channels.

you can also think of product market fit as “time to start building scalable acquisition channels”.

NPS is sometimes used as a product market fit metric, but some of the biggest tech companies in the world have terrible NPS, but are still able to grow to over a billion users

any product with great cohort retention rate can be distributed with good growth strategy and execution.

As you improve your product, newer cohorts will have high cohort retention rates. So, it’s important to have a cohort retention “triangle” chart to track progress

Once you have a few cohorts that level off at a vertical-specific number, then you’ve achieved product market fit!

Different types of products have different “points” of product market fit, so it’s important to find the retention rate of some comparable products that have been able to significantly grow to find the right benchmark for you.

A good rule of thumb is for consumer products, 25% is a good floor and and for B2B SaaS products, 70% is a good floor.

Good retention amplifies your acquisition efforts, since the users you acquire actually stay. Good retention is also usually correlated with how much users love your product, which amplifies your word of mouth. Users are more likely to share your product with friends if they are still using it after a long period of time.

Actively measure your cohort retention rate using a “triangle” cohort retention chart