Know Your Customer
Personas, Segmentation, Customer Research
Assumptions Are Expensive
You can't build a great product, write compelling ads, or pick the right channels if you don't know who you're selling to. Start with assumptions, but replace them with real data as fast as you can. Talk to customers. Survey them. Watch what they actually do, not what they say they'll do. Your customer personas should be living documents that get sharper over time.
Key topics covered
- Why Customer Research Follows FoundationFoundation comes first - PMF, beachhead market, brand DNA. But before you build product, run ads, or create content, understand who you're building for.
- Starting With Assumptions (Pre-Revenue / Early Stage)Before you have customers, you have hypotheses. Write them down. Be specific as vague assumptions are impossible to validate.
- Talking to Real CustomersCustomer Interviews: Aim for 20+ in the first 90 days. Structured conversations with open-ended questions. "What made you buy?" not "Did you like our product?"
- Building Useful Personas (Not the Fluffy Ones)Most persona exercises produce beautifully designed PDFs that never get opened again. Good personas are built from data, not imagination, and include information you can act on.
- What a Useful Persona Includes
- Activity-Based Cohort SegmentationGroup customers by what they DO, not just who they ARE. Far more actionable than demographics alone.
- How Personas EvolveTrack how customers evolve, not only who they are at first purchase. That's where the real product and marketing insights live.
- How This Feeds Everything Else
Why Customer Research Follows Foundation
Foundation comes first - PMF, beachhead market, brand DNA. But before you build product, run ads, or create content, understand who you're building for.
This is iterative. Start with assumptions and refine as you learn. Your day-one customer hypothesis will be wrong in ways you can't predict. The goal is to start with something testable and replace assumptions with real data fast.
Every section that follows depends on this one - product decisions, ad targeting, email segmentation, content strategy, IRL investments.
Starting With Assumptions (Pre-Revenue / Early Stage)
Before you have customers, you have hypotheses. Write them down. Be specific as vague assumptions are impossible to validate.
- Who is your beachhead customer? Not "everyone who likes outdoor gear." Something like: "Male road cyclists, 28-45, who commute by bike and want their phone accessible for navigation."
- What problem are you solving? Their actual problem, not your product features.
- Where do they hang out? Platforms, communities, forums, events, stores, podcasts.
- What would make them buy? Price point, social proof, features, brand alignment?
- What might stop them? Price objections, trust concerns, competing solutions, inertia?
Customer Interviews: Aim for 20+ in the first 90 days. Structured conversations with open-ended questions. "What made you buy?" not "Did you like our product?"
Post-Purchase Surveys - three questions that will change your brand:
Support Ticket Analysis: Your support inbox is unfiltered customer insight. Themes tell you what your website isn't communicating and what your product isn't delivering.
Keep reading in the full playbook.
All 30 sections, the diagnostic Health Check, 400+ checklist items, and 8 tools. Free and always will be.
Open the full playbookWhat you'll walk away with
- Documented initial customer hypothesis
- Conducted 20+ customer interviews or surveys
- Built 3-5 data-driven personas (not imagined ones)
- Identified activity-based customer cohorts
- Set up post-purchase survey (what made you buy / what almost stopped you / where did you hear about us)
- Review and update personas quarterly.
- Share customer insight summaries with product, marketing, and support leads.
- Different messaging/creative tested per persona
- Support ticket themes analysed for customer insight