So I’m a business expert, because I’ve read almost 2 books on the subject. And all (both) of the books that I have read say the same thing, more or less: find your customer, not your product. The first book presupposed a product and was elucidating the process of marketing it, but really that process is one of narrowing your focus down to a particular imaginary person and selling to him, and that narrowing down changes the character of your product to fit the imaginary needs of the imaginary person (yoga studio becomes yoga studio for middle aged women who like to take their cats to yoga, etc). And the imaginary person ends up representing a whole segment of the population, because we are not as unique as we think we are, and there are a lot of people in the world.
So, find your customer, not your product. Imagine your customer, find him, get to know him, find out what he wants, needs, and is eager to spend money on, and then make that. Make a whole bunch of different products that are connected not by what they are but who they serve.
The easiest way to find this customer is to look inward. Who are you? What is important to you? What are the pain points in your life (that’s business jargon, and it’s how you know I’m a business expert. I learned it from one of the almost 2 business books that I read)?
But when I look at myself, I find that I’m kind of a lot of people. I have a lot of customer identities, and I’m not sure which one I should try to create for. I think it’s one of those questions that is really interesting to ponder but not actually that helpful to spend much time on. It probably doesn’t really matter, and if being successful at businessing is our new thing, then picking one just leaves other opportunities open for future endeavors.
But I did think of one that kind of has a leg up on the others (is that really the saying? What is that about?). So maybe I’ll go with that one for now.
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