Support Signals Product Fit

A key signal of product-market fit is when founders stop focusing on features/marketing and become obsessed with server capacity and customer support needs. Here's the framework:

The Server/Support Test for Product-Market Fit

• When a product truly hits product-market fit, founders only care about two things:
  • Adding more servers (for tech products)
  • Hiring more customer support people (for any product)

Real Examples of This Pattern

• Instagram's Early Days

  • Launched quietly, went viral in Japan overnight
  • 25,000 users in first couple days
  • All focus shifted to "how do we get more server capacity?"
  • Stopped thinking about features, logos, names, hiring
  • Only focused on adding servers

• The Worst Drug (Gif Website)

  • Founders slept under desks when site went viral
  • Had to constantly upgrade servers to handle traffic
  • All energy went to infrastructure scaling
  • Everything else became secondary to keeping site running

Why This Matters

• True product-market fit hits "like a punch in the face"
• Can't survey your way into knowing if you have it
• When founders obsess over:
  • AWS credits
  • Server costs
  • Support staff hiring
  • Infrastructure scaling These are strong signals of product-market fit

Investment Signal

• When meeting founders who are primarily concerned about:
  • Finding customer support people
  • Managing server costs/capacity
  • Infrastructure scaling This suggests they've found product-market fit and are worth investing in

Key Insight

Product-market fit is obvious when a company's primary challenge becomes keeping up with demand rather than generating it.