Aiming for 40% very disappointed customers

MedTech Marketing take-away from Earlybird's Annual Limited Partner/Founders Day

A great day in Berlin

Earlybird Venture Captial hosted its annual Limited Partner/Founders Day in Berlin last week. Among several company presentations and workshops, one headline and presentation stood out to me from a MedTech Marketing view: The aim of 40% very disappointed customers.

Measuring Product-Market-Fit

You are serious about medical technology marketing, so you know about Product-Market-Fit. It's a term coined by several authors and describes the state, when a product satisfies a market demand. I've personally used this term and concept a lot in the past. Especially during product requirement definition phases or when making concrete feature trade-offs.

So far nothing new here.

Last week I've come across a rather shocking headline "Aim for 40% of your customers to be disappointed". Maria McMenami, a Revenue Generation Advisor, presented the headline during Earlybird's Founders Day. And it makes absolute sense, when you read the explaination: If over 40% of customers say they would be very disappointed if you product wasn't available to them, you have achieved product/market fit. It's a useful and rather simple metric to collect. Ask your customers in one of you next surveys how they would feel, if your product was no longer available to them. When asking your customers this question in a questionnaire, you should also allow for open-ended responses to understand why they respond like they respond. If you are close to 40%, learn what product or segment tweaks can get you above the line and what solutions customers consider as viable alternatives to their problems.

Examples: Dental drill & laparoscopic surgical robot

Usually there are several limitations to these kinds of measures, but I struggle to find a limitation for this one. Remember: Product-Market-Fit describes the state, when a product satisfies a market demand. If you were e.g. providing a commoditized medical device like a standard dental handpiece drill, it would be harder to reach the 40%, as there is less unfilled market demand, as there are so many dental drills out there and differentiation is low.

If you use a complex device like a laparoscopic surgical robot, the degree to which customers would be very disappointed if it was no longer available to them, will depend a lot on the usefulness of the robot (added value). This in turn will depend a lot on how well they have been trained to use it,

So the 40% very disappointed customers concept can actually also help you identify sources of value and differentiation.