Article · ~12 min read

How to kickstart and scale a consumer business: Step 2, Identify your super-specific who

Lenny Rachitsky · Lenny's Newsletter Freemium Beginner

This piece is built entirely around the phrase super-specific who, consumer-side evidence for the same logic our short answer states for B2B. It shows why marketplaces and consumer apps that succeeded (one city, one narrow group) deliberately refused to widen early, and gives you a way to write your own super-specific who in a sentence.

• About 80 percent of successful marketplaces poured early effort into one narrow niche before expanding, not several at once.
• A super-specific who should be narrow enough that you could picture an actual person, not a demographic bucket.
• Widening too early dilutes both word-of-mouth and the product decisions you make.