Choosing an audience before building anything
In 2014 I wanted to build a product and didn't know who for. This is the exercise I worked through, from Justin Jackson's writing on finding an audience. Credit to him; the list is mine.
1. List every group you belong to
Mine, July 2014:
- PHP developers, devops, web freelancers, frontenders
- Smart metering and IoT people
- Productivity and GTD people, OneNote users
Yours should be longer. That's the point.
2. Cut it down
- Where do I have an unfair advantage? Experience, connections, an audience already.
- Which group excites me most right now? People can tell, and they listen.
- Who has money to spend? If the end goal is selling a product, some groups buy for their business and some don't buy at all.
- Will I still like serving them in a year? In five? You'll be talking to these people every day. (That one is Carl Alexander's, quoted by Justin.)
3. Name a real person
Fill in the sentence: "The audience I'm choosing is (web designers) who are (just starting out), because (I've just finished my first two years and remember what it's like)." Then think of one actual person who fits it.
4. Research, don't guess
Your gut has been in the community, not studying it.
Find where they hang out online and lurk with a purpose. Write down their pains, complaints, questions, beliefs and the products they already use. Do a lot of it, tens of hours, before you build anything. Then sort it and label the patterns. (This step is Amy Hoy's.)
Next: pick a niche in three steps, then write a positioning statement you can actually fill in.