(2020-06-17) Shah Why Zoom Doesn't Have Product/Market Fit

Hiten Shah: Why Zoom doesn’t have product/market fit. If any company has product/market fit, it’s Zoom. Right?... Except Zoom doesn’t have product/market fit or high customer satisfaction.

Sean Ellis developed a way to measure product/market fit by calculating the percentage of people who say they’d be very disappointed if they couldn’t use a product anymore. Once 40% or more people say they’d be very disappointed, that product is said to have product/market fit.

only 30% said they’d be very disappointed

When looking at product/market fit, it’s important to segment the data to understand which market segments are the happiest, which you could get to convert easily, and which would need the most work.

The top reason people use Zoom is for work. That’s exactly where Zoom has the lowest product/market fit. Only 32% of those people said “Very Disappointed.” And they made up the majority too, with 89% of people who took the survey saying they used Zoom for work.

based on our survey results, Zoom’s Net Promoter score (NPS) is a 21.

For comparison with other collaboration tools, Notion has an NPS of 49, G Suite is at 43, and Airtable is right around where Zoom is, at 24.

there are 3 headwinds holding Zoom back from product/market fit.
Plenty of alternatives
Time to satisfied customers
Security and privacy concerns

Reliability is the top benefit people receive from Zoom. It’s why people who have been using Zoom for years love it.