One thing I like to think about before I start actually building a side project is "who am I building for?"
The common term for this is your Ideal Customer Profile or ICP.
An ICP is a detailed description of the perfect customer for your product or service.
It is very important because it not only helps to guide the development of your project, but also the marketing efforts, copy for your landing page and much more. Using these buyer personas has been shown to drive more revenue.
Your ICP needs to be as detailed as possible. For example, when I started working PlaylistKit, I could have said my ICP are people that listen to music.
While this is true, it's not very help for guiding where to take your project, and how to reach potential users.
Rather I needed to delve deeper...eventually I landed on:
Music fans, male or female, aged 18-49. Subscribe to Spotify. Live in the USA and attend more than 2 live music events a year.
Using this profile, I was better able to understand the potential user base. Also made me focus on the live music aspect of the product and messaging.
Although Spotify now boasts over 600M monthly users, for my purposes, I was focused on the people that live in the USA, so around 110M users. That however, is all Spotify users including free users, I wanted to focus on people that paid for Spotify, another signal of their interest in music. In the USA that number is around 65M people.
The numbers for people that live music is little harder, especially when considering the overlap with Spotify subscribers. However, LiveNation, one of the largest concert organizers in the country, reported that 145M tickets were sold at their events in 2023 and are estimating that number to grow in 2024.
Since both these numbers are very large, I wan't too concerned about finding the overlap.
Having 2 groups users of opens up even more marketing opportunities.
On sites like Reddit, there are subreddits devoted to Spotify, and top artists who we can easily check are on tour. Both Spotify and the artists are very active on social media platforms, giving us ways to reach both them, and their fans.
Your side project doesn't need to appeal to everyone. A well-defined niche can lead to stronger customer loyalty and easier marketing. So we could niche further in particular for the marketing particularly.
For example: Music fans, aged 18-29. Subscribe to Spotify. Live in the USA and attending an upcoming Taylor Swift concert.
Defining your Ideal Customer Profile is a crucial step in launching a successful side project. It provides focus for your efforts and helps you connect with the right audience. Remember you can refine your ICP as you learn more about your customers.
Focusing on our target audience can help us maximize our limited time, especially considering the constraints of a day job.
Ready to define your ICP? Begin by listing the key characteristics of your ideal customer. This simple step can set you on the path to side project success. Don't let your great idea get lost in the crowd - target the right people from the start!