Hello and welcome back to Startup Curious, where we discuss things you should know if you’re thinking about working for or starting a startup.
Today, I’m going to be discussing how to choose which customer type to focus on. If you missed the last episode where we discussed why it’s important to pick an initial customer type, I’d recommend going back and listening to that first.
If you’re like most people, when you envision your initial customer persona you’re either thinking of something really broad and vague like “people who own dogs” or you’re thinking about a bunch of different kinds of customers like “people who love hiking, people who love skateboarding and people who love skiing.”
If things go well, you may really end up building a product for all of them. However, like we discussed last time, you need to narrow this down to build a successful first version… or versions of your product.
This can be scary! When you say “yes” to focusing on a particular customer type, it will feel like saying “no” to a bunch of other opportunities… and saying no to opportunities is naturally scary. Keep in mind, though, you’re not necessarily saying “no” forever. Instead, you’re just saying “not right now.” You can always return to those customer types later as you gain more information or start to really nail the product for whatever initial customer you choose.
Okay, so you’re on board with narrowing down your target customer list… but how do you go about doing that? Well, the first step is usually to talk to a bunch of people who may or may not become ideal customers. Try to talk to a diverse set, including people who are maybe a little outside of what you’re picturing. As you’re talking to them, take note of who is really passionate about whatever problem you’re trying to solve. And when I say take note of who… take note of as many details as possible.
After you’ve talked to a decent number of people (there’s no hard and fast rule here, but aiming for 10-15 is great), look at who you marked down as especially passionate about the problem space. Hopefully you have at least a couple! Then, figure out what they have in common - backgrounds, age range, geographic location, job title… If you’re doing a product for dog owners, breed of dog, experiences with owning a dog, if they have other pets… you get the idea.
As you do this, you should be able to form a slightly more narrow potential user persona. Once you do, try to find a couple of people who fit into that as closely as possible and go talk to them. Are they also passionate about the problem space? For anyone who isn’t, is there something different about their backgrounds that you can use to further narrow down the persona?
Of course, humans aren’t robots so you’re likely going to get some messy information here - people who fit into the persona who haven’t experienced whatever problem you’re trying to solve for them or people who are wildly different who are passionate about it. You’re going to just have to use your intuition to take all of this information and turn it into an opinion.
Now, as you may know - people can be unreliable narrators about their own interests. So, once you have your more narrow persona… you’re not done yet. The next step is to build something very minimal - the most minimal thing you can think of - that addresses their problem. Then, go back to the people who were most interested and see what they think and if they’d use your solution.
You may find out that some people who were previously excited aren’t actually as passionate about solving this problem as they seemed, and that’s okay! Use this information to further narrow your persona or go back to the drawing board about your MVP. This cycle may continue a few times (and you can, of course, expand the amount of people you’re talking to as well if you need to) before you feel like you have a good idea of what you’re building and who you’re building it for. Once you have that sense… start building!
Now, there are definitely cases where the above process doesn’t quite work to narrow things down. Maybe you’re continually finding a few personas that seem at odds are interested. Maybe you just can’t find enough people to talk to in different categories. Maybe your gut is pulling you in a different direction.
In that case, my advice to you is this: build something broad - but still MVP size - and get it out there. Do some lightweight marketing, see who signs up, see who uses the product, see if anyone pays. Then, aggressively target the most valuable users when you build new features. This may mean beginning to build a product that some of your early users don’t love anymore because it’s no longer for them. That’s okay! The goal is to build something that a small set of people love, not that a huge set of people like.
Again, this can be scary - you’re potentially alienating people. However, remember - most of them aren’t nearly as invested in what you’re building as you are. If you’re early on and lose some customers… it’s not a huge deal as long as you’re in pursuit of gaining more valuable ones. And, again - you may not be losing them forever. Eventually you may end up circling back around and building for them again… once you’ve built something your initial target customers love!
Alright, that’s where we’ll wrap up for today. I do want to emphasize that this process will not feel nearly as clean as it sounds when laid out like this. You’ll go down the wrong path sometimes, have false starts, etc. That’s all okay! The key is to keep your eye on the prize and keep learning and experimenting.
Thank you for joining us today! If you found this episode useful, please remember to subscribe and share. Our goal is to make startups more approachable for everyone and the only way we can do that is to get the word out!
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If you have a topic you’d like to learn more about, or you’re a founder who would like their story featured on this show, send me an email at v@thescrappyoperator.com.
How do I pick an initial target customer?