A product-market fit survey asks active users “How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?” with three answers: very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, not disappointed. Sean Ellis's rule of thumb is that companies with strong traction almost always had more than 40% answer “very disappointed” (source below); the follow-ups here ask each group why, so the score turns into the one benefit to protect and the one gap to fix.
The very-disappointed group shares one benefit: the invoice goes out the same day the work ends. The somewhat-disappointed group wants the same thing but reconciles payments by hand.
An example of the line the Agent Results Brief leads with.The question is Sean Ellis's: “How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?” with the answers very disappointed, somewhat disappointed and not disappointed. First Round Review's account of how Superhuman ran it, How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit, states Ellis's rule of thumb: companies that struggled to find growth almost always had less than 40% of users answer “very disappointed,” and companies with strong traction almost always exceeded that. It's a rule of thumb from Ellis's experience across many startups, not a law. Superhuman's own follow-ups were what type of people would benefit most, the main benefit, and how to improve; those are the first three of the standard set below; the two after them are ours.
Your fit is here. They've built a habit around one benefit. Ask what they'd lose and who else is like them; that's the benefit to protect and the person to find more of.
Useful, not essential. Split them by the benefit they name: the ones who name the same benefit as the very-disappointed group are one gap away. Ask what that gap is.
Not your market, or not yet. Don't build for them, but ask who they think it's for; they often describe your real customer better than your fans do.
Under every question is the follow-up Spoke asks when the first answer is vague. That second question is where the real answer usually is.
What would you miss most if it were gone tomorrow?
What would you do on the first day without it?
What were you doing before you found [product]?
What was the worst week of doing it that way?
Who else do you know who'd feel the same way?
What do they have in common with you?
Which part of [product] would you fight to keep?
What would break in your week if it went?
What nearly lost you in the first month?
What got you past that?
How do you describe [product] to someone who hasn't heard of it?
What's the word you use for what it does?
What's missing for [product] to be something you couldn't do without?
When did you last hit that gap?
Which part of the job does [product] hand back to you?
What do you reach for at that point?
What does [product] do well enough that you keep it around?
What would make that part great rather than good enough?
What would have to change for you to answer “very disappointed”?
Of those changes, which one would move you on its own?
What brings you back to it in a normal week?
What happens in the weeks you don't come back?
What did you hope it would do that it hasn't yet?
How close has it come?
What are you using [product] for right now, if anything?
What did you open it for the last time you did?
What did you try to do with it that didn't work out?
At what point did you stop trying?
What would make you come back to it?
What would need to be true on the first day back?
Who do you think [product] is really for?
How is that person different from you?
What did you expect it to be when you signed up?
Where did that expectation come from?
What type of person do you think would benefit most from [product]?
What are they trying to get done that you're not?
What is the main benefit you get from [product]?
What's the last thing it did for you that you'd have missed otherwise?
How can we improve [product] for you?
What would you do first once that improvement shipped?
What would you use instead if [product] no longer existed?
What would you lose in the switch?
What's the closest thing to [product] you'd considered before?
What kept you from picking it?
Every person gets interviewed, not surveyed. Spoke asks, listens, and follows up on what that person actually said. Here's an example.
Read the answer, not the transcripts: themes ranked by how many people raised them, the quotes behind each, and the places where two groups disagree.
Of the people who answered, 52 would be very disappointed, 63 somewhat and 31 not. The very-disappointed group shares one benefit: the invoice goes out the same day the work ends and the client pays from the link. The somewhat-disappointed group names the same benefit but reconciles payments by hand because there's no bank sync, and that's the gap they'd need closed. The not-disappointed group mostly used it once, for one client, and went back to a document. What to do: double down on same-day invoicing, build bank sync for the somewhat group, stop chasing the one-client group.
An example Agent Results Brief. The counts, themes and quotes are illustrative, not from a real survey.
The three answers sort people. The follow-up finds out what each person would actually lose, which is what you can build on. One example per answer:
“Useful” meant one specific benefit: knowing a client email is handled and by whom. That's the benefit to put on the homepage, not “all your email in one place.”
The gap is the handoff to the shop, not the planning. One export or one integration moves this person, and probably the others who name the same benefit.
The person who's not disappointed just described the market: support staff who answer the same question repeatedly. That's who to send the next survey to.
The score is one number. The reading below, which follows Superhuman's account, is what turns it into a plan.
One survey gives you the score and, with the follow-ups, the reason. Here's what to ask each group first and what a vague reply sounds like. More on wording probes in open-ended survey questions; for the related score with a 0–10 scale, see NPS follow-up questions.
| Answer | What you want to learn | Ask first | If the answer is vague |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very disappointed | The one benefit they'd lose, and who else is like them | “What would you miss most if it were gone tomorrow?” | “What would you do on the first day without it?” |
| Somewhat disappointed | The gap between useful and essential | “What's missing for it to be something you couldn't do without?” | “When did you last hit that gap?” |
| Not disappointed | Who the product is really for, and what they expected | “Who do you think it's really for?” | “How is that person different from you?” |
The question wording, the three answers and the 40% rule of thumb are as reported in First Round Review's How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit (Rahul Vohra), which attributes the benchmark to Sean Ellis. No other benchmark on this page; anything else you read about a “good” score is someone's opinion.
What do you want to learn, and who's answering?
Drafted the spec. I'll open with the Ellis question and branch the follow-ups by answer. Should I send it to everyone who signed up, or only to people who used the product in the last two weeks?
A short survey that asks active users “How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?” with three answers: very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, not disappointed. The share who answer “very disappointed” is the score; the follow-up questions turn it into what to protect and what to fix.
Another name for the same survey. Sean Ellis, who ran growth at several early startups, found that the share of users who'd be very disappointed without the product separated companies that grew from companies that struggled. His rule of thumb is the bar shown above, with its source.
Ellis's rule of thumb, about four in ten active users answering “very disappointed” (the figure and its source are in the section above). It's a rule of thumb from his experience, not a law. Your own score moving after you ship a fix matters more than where it sits today.
The Ellis question, then the standard follow-ups Superhuman used: what type of person would benefit most, the main benefit, and how to improve. Add what they'd use instead. This page groups the follow-ups by answer so the very-disappointed group tells you what to protect and the somewhat group tells you what's missing.
People who have used the product recently and enough to miss it. Sending it to everyone who ever signed up pulls the score down with people who never really tried it. If you have several kinds of user, read the answers by kind; fit is often strong in one segment and absent in another. Run it again after you ship the fix; the change in the very-disappointed share is the result.
Enough that the split stops moving when a few more answers come in. With a small user base, read the very-disappointed group's answers as interviews rather than as a percentage.
Free to start. No card. Your first ten agent surveys are on us.
