To make money, you need to understand the consumer — whether existing or potential. Logically? Logically. And now answer honestly:

If you're having trouble answering, this is a guide for you. The material consists of sections:

Important: even if you know the client thoroughly, it does not guarantee success, but significantly increases its probability.

Let's say you want to start a business. There are two ways:

Going from a client is a better strategy than going from an idea. You are working with an existing need and are not trying to fit the market into a product that may not be needed by anyone.

Your job is to craft a solution around an existing need.

So here you look at the product or the concept of the product and you think, who could use it?

For example: you produce children's outerwear. So the target audience is women with children.

Your task is to understand what their need is and to adjust the product to it.

Tens of thousands of startups start with an idea and a belief in the product. But, as practice has shown, faith is not a strategy. Very often people lose money, time and motivation until they admit: it was necessary to start with the client.

Case: Playkey wrote how they saw their mistake only after a while, corrected, and increased the profit by 20 times in a year and a half.

Exception: TikTok offered a more fashionable format than Instagram, interesting for a younger audience. Did not move from any pain or idea, but continue to take over the market.

This is an example of unformed demand.

When demand has been formed — it means that the market already exists, the solutions are understandable, and consumers have a clear idea of what they need.

Examples:

• construction of houses;
• tattoo application;
• massage;
• fitness;
• services of a marketer, etc.

It’s simple here: the client already knows what he needs and is looking for a solution. Your task is to understand who this client is, how he makes the decision, and to customize the product and marketing for this process
Unformed demand means when a market is just taking shape and there are either no ready-made solutions or they are not yet in the minds of consumers.

Examples:

• messengers (unlike social networks);
• Cloud computing (not just powerful computers)
• Google Docs (not Word).

In new markets, demand is not yet formed, but demand is already there. People just don't realize the solution you're offering.

Therefore, advertising "here's the product — take" does not work here. We need to show the problem, explain why it's necessary at all, and gradually create demand through content.
And now we admit: in practice, everything is the opposite - most often, first they come up with a product, and then they are already trying to find an audience for it. So the first thing to do is to understand who your audience is.

That’s how a customer’s real portrait begins, one that helps them understand their needs and tailor their product or marketing to meet them.

By the way: the sotdem (gender, age, city) can also be useful, but not for segmentation, but for creativity and presentation. Otherwise, it's just a background.

How, then, to divide the target audience?

It is best to divide not by age and sex, but by the logic of choice - that is, by what is important to a person when making a decision.

Example: piano school. The product is the same, but people have different motives. Here are three segments:

1. Women who realize a long-held dream
As a child, they wanted to learn how to play, but failed. Now they want to go back to that, to enjoy the process, to realize a personal goal.

• Important: atmosphere, gradual training, full-fledged classes with theory and practice.
• You have to sell idea and engagement.

2. Men who want to impress
The goal is to learn 1-2 songs. For example, play "Pirates of the Caribbean" or something simple for a loved one. No theory, no complexity.

• Important: quick achievement of results, minimum requirements.
• We need to emphasize simplicity and speed.

3. Children preparing for interventions
They are brought by their parents, the task is to prepare for the exam or competition.

• Important: clear structure, practice, confidence in the result.
• We need to talk about the quality of training and achievements.

These are just examples, but the approach is the same: different goals are different segments. Both marketing and product need to be tailored to this.

Just remember: demographics are not segmentation.

Age, gender and the presence of a cat on the avatar will not tell you how a person makes decisions.
Behavior is what really shows motivation.

And it’s not just our experience — it’s what the Marketing Week study tells us: behavioral segmentation is far more useful than demographic segmentation. Because people with the same passport can behave completely differently.

Start by examining the existing data.

To understand potential customers, you need to explore the market they form. This is called secondary research, but if the term is confusing, it is easier to say: explore open sources.

What it can be:

• market and industry reports,
• competitor research,
• open surveys, articles, reviews,
• analytics in the media, on Habra, VC, etc.

What are the disadvantages:

• does not always fit your niche;
• may be out of date;
• you can't trust me, you have to check.

After that, it is logical to proceed to the next step - to collect your own data.

Once you have studied the market and open sources, it is time to move on to your own research. There are two basic approaches:

• Qualitative analysis - to collect hypotheses, insiders and ideas.
• Quantitative analysis is to test these hypotheses on a sample.

That is, the technique is:

Sometimes it makes sense to start with the numbers at once (for example, if you already have a base), and then go deep and understand why people choose this way, and not otherwise.

The main thing is to understand why you do it and what you want to know.

The most obvious way to gather primary information is to talk to potential customers.
But it's not that simple, because:

1. Qualitative analysis is largely emotional (as opposed to quantitative), based on a small sample, and there is no "exact" data.
2. Your questions can be treated subjectively.
3. [It’s going to be hard] "What people say and what people do is very different from what they say they do," said Margaret Mead, an American anthropologist.
4. People lie.

How do you lie? It's basic.

• 30% say they watched the Godfather, though not (according to The British Press Association).
• 40% embellish resume - language, experience, education (according to Sunny Bates Associates).
• 90% lie in dating questionnaires (according to Scientific American): girls "lose" 10 kg, guys "find" growth and money.

You must take this into account. Therefore, any oral data must be re-checked.

Finding a place to ask is not a problem.

It is often a mistake to call a problematic interview the word "Castdev". In fact, CustDev is a broad approach to customer-centric product development. It includes interviews, MVP testing, and other methods. But a conversation with the user about his problems is a problematic interview.

The point is to talk to the consumer (current or potential) not on a hard questionnaire, but to look for causation. You ask questions, the person tells, and you make sure that the conversation does not get lost. In essence, this is an in-depth interview - without a fixed list, with open questions and a free form of answer.

1. The first thing is to define the goal

The goal will depend on whether you have a startup or a company. For example, in a start-up, you might be looking for a specific problem and configuration of a product that will satisfy it. It is more suitable for the company to analyze and analyze the already established product.
The scripts of your questions will vary greatly, so it is important to decide what you want. Confirm the problem, understand it in more detail or understand. how a person buys, selects, compares and what is important to him. These will all be different goals: either how a person uses the product, or how he advises him and why he abandons it.

2. The second plus of the interview - you choose who to talk to
You define the segment, and then you check whether there is pain or insight. For example, do you want to understand why the client left? Talk to someone who has stopped using the product. Do you want to understand why you were chosen? Talk to the person who just came.
Just understand which segment it is from (sample segments here), and just custdev it.

What you can learn through a problematic interview

• The context in which the person sought information (e.g. looking for a job);
• What barriers and fears he had;
• What was the trigger of the purchase;
• What alternatives he was considering;
• Whether there were requirements for the product;
• What budget he had;
• What is missing in the current product;
• What did not like;
• Which he particularly appreciates.

What questions to ask
I think the best list is over here, Customer Development: 50 interview questions. But in short, of the 5 categories of questions, the most useful are the three:

• Product/market fit (product and market correspondence)
• Market research (market research);
• Online habits (user habits online).

Let's do it one by one
Product and market compliance:

• Where are you solving the problem now?
• How much did they pay for this decision?
• Satisfied with the result?
• How do you understand that your problem has been solved?
• What happens if you can't fix your problem or close the need?
• What makes you uncomfortable when choosing a solution?

Market research:

• What do you have to deal with every day?
• Tell us when the last time you encountered such difficulties. How often does this happen?
• Why was it hard?
• What were the consequences?
• What kind of emotion were you feeling at that moment?
• Describe it and rate the power of emotion on a ten-point scale. What's on this scale of 10?

User habits:

• What kind of content do you usually consume on the Internet?
• Where do you read the news?
• Why is it there?
• Tell us what you like about this resource.
• What social networks are you registered on?
• Where do you spend more time?
• Which bloggers are subscribed to?
• Who do you constantly read and consider an idol?
• Why him?
• Describe what you like about this blogger.

Important: users do not buy your product, but switch to it from somewhere else. There are 4 forces at the same time, each of which you can ask a client who has come or gone:

Businesses often need to understand why people choose products or services. What drives their decisions? Why do they choose a particular product or service for a particular task? One effective way to study consumer motivation is with Job To Be Done (JTBD).

JTBD helps to identify the real reason for buying a product or using a service. The methodology allows you to understand what customer needs are left unmet and how a company can improve the product to close these "holes".

Important: JTBD is different from, for example, Customer Development (CDE), although both techniques focus on collecting user data. If CDE helps to find new ideas and directions of development, then JTBD works on checking already formulated hypotheses and solutions.

Now JTBD is at the peak of its popularity - it is written and spoken about everywhere. But it is worth remembering: this technique is not suitable for all cases. For example, in Edtech, everything is quite limited - "get a profession", "learn a skill", "start earning". That's it. It is pointless to lay such tasks on JTBD - and nevertheless, the method continues to pull there.

But when JTBD is really needed, it is in areas with complex products and many functions. For example, in B2B/B2C services with process automation or optimization. The method works particularly well in FinTech - for example, with banking applications.

It would seem - translations. But even here, the challenges are many. Some people need one-time translation, others need regular translation. Someone inside a family, with a shared account or cards. Someone to share the bill with friends after the restaurant. All this is like the same action, but for each case - its script, its needs, its functionality. This is what helps to decompose the JTBD.
JTBD is used to ask people who bought a particular product (your or your competitors) why they did it (in other words, why they "hired" that product).

Here is the framework:
1) verb;
2) an object;
3) context.

For example, learn product management to find a new job. This is an example of a functional job. Others will be discussed below.

Jobs Types
Jobs can be different in nature. The main types include

1. Functional Job: is related to the implementation of a specific practical task. For example, using an app to order food to save time.
2. Emotional Job: Aims to satisfy emotional needs. For example, buying beautiful clothes to increase self-esteem.
3. Social Job: Provides social recognition or interaction. For example, visiting a fashionable restaurant to impress friends.

And here is the technique:

User Story exists alongside Job Story. Here comes the formula not from the need, as above, but from the person:

“As a <type of user>, I want to <action/some goal> so that <outcome>​”

What is a good quantitative analysis:

1. Good for tests;
2. Large sample;
3. Give confidence;
4. Representative data;
5. Gives an idea of the size of the market

Case: at Timepad, we wanted to run ads on new customers. To understand what advantages should be put on the banners, just conducted a newsletter-survey among existing customers: "What do you value most in us?". Answers were sorted by frequency and the most popular ones were taken into advertising creatives.

Having hypotheses after quantitative analysis, they can be confirmed or disproved. To do this, they conduct surveys - on their own base (if there is one) or on someone else's.

To do this, you can use services where you pay for completed questionnaires

Paste the data and get the answer to the question. It's easy!

User Flow is a visual representation of the sequence of actions that a user takes to achieve his or her goal. This tool is used to improve the user's interaction with the product, whether it is a mobile application, a website or any other digital service.

To create a User Flow, you need to answer three key questions:

1. Who is your consumer? Description of the target audience: age, gender, interests, income level, etc.
2. What's his goal? What does he want to achieve using your product?
3. What steps should it take to achieve that goal? A detailed description of each step that the user takes.

Additional questions may also be asked to gain a better understanding:

• Why does the user use your product?
• What motivates him to achieve this goal?
• What are the hurdles that can stand in his way?
• What product features are most important to it?

How does User Flow help your business?

1. User Flow helps you develop a product that is intuitive and user-friendly. This reduces the likelihood that a client will leave your application or site due to the complexity of use.
2. With User Flow, you can identify process bottlenecks and eliminate them, making the customer’s path smoother and more efficient.
3. A user-friendly product increases customer loyalty, increases their time spent on the platform, and contributes to sales growth.

And yet, no matter how we talk about methodologies and approaches, there is a way that works to better understand customers.

Just try selling your product live. Yeah, that's it, directly. If a person refuses, ask why. If you agree, ask what convinced him. That's the real research. No more words. And to quickly test an idea or collect feedback from living people, you can use AskUsers - a simple and convenient way to collect opinions on a case.

At the beginning, the Playkey case was cited. I will conclude the material with the words of its founder, Yegor Guryev:

"Please talk to the client. He'll tell you a lot of interesting things. For B2B, I devote at least one day a month to these conversations. For B2C, two days a week."