Chapter 1 · Practice 3 of 4
Pick a narrow first customer you can reach directly
Why it matters
"Small businesses" is not a customer. "Independent physiotherapy clinics with two to five staff who book by phone" is. A narrow first customer lets you find people to talk to, learn their language, and build something that fits them well.
Paul Graham's essay on doing things that do not scale suggests acting like a consultant for a single user at first: "pick a single user and act as if they were consultants building something just for that one user". The general product comes later, from what several such users have in common.
Good first customers are:
- Reachable: you can find and message twenty of them this month.
- In pain: the problem costs them time or money every week.
- Able to pay: they already spend money on tools or workarounds.
Do
- Write your first customer as a specific type of person or business
- Find twenty of them to talk to before building
Avoid
- Starting with "everyone who uses the internet"