Essay

The Adjacent User Theory

Bangaly Kaba · Bangaly Kaba, on Andrew Chen's blog Free Advanced

This framework explains why the next ring of users you are chasing often behaves nothing like your current best users, and why founders mistake early enthusiasm for a signal that any adjacent group will convert the same way. Sharpens your thinking about which segment is actually next, not just biggest.

  • Your next users are rarely a scaled up version of your current best users
  • Each adjacent ring of users needs a different onboarding hump cleared
  • Confusing your core segment with the next one leads to building for nobody well
Open on andrewchen.com ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. How do I know if I'm targeting the wrong customer?
  2. How do I know if I've defined my ICP too narrowly and I'm leaving obvious customers out?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. The author of Crossing the Chasm explaining beachhead selection in plain, modern language, the fastest way to absorb the... Lenny's Podcast / Lenny's Newsletter Podcast · ~75 min Geoffrey Moore on finding your beachhead, crossing the chasm, and dominating a market Lenny Rachitsky & Geoffrey Moore
  4. The best book on positioning against competitors by understanding the alternatives customers actually consider. Directly turns... aprildunford.com Book · ~200 pages Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April Dunford
  5. Turns the vague feeling of product-market fit into a number you can move. Ask users how they would feel if they could no longer... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit Rahul Vohra
  6. Market size is meaningless until you know exactly who you're for, and Lenny turns that into a concrete, repeatable ICP exercise... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to identify your ideal customer profile (ICP) Lenny Rachitsky
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →