Essay · 5 min read

The Minimum Viable Audience

Seth Godin · Seth's Blog Free Beginner

Godin's short post makes the strongest case for going smaller on purpose: pick the smallest group you can delight completely rather than the largest group you can mildly interest, because delight compounds through word of mouth. It is the emotional counterpart to the math in our short answer, useful when a niche feels uncomfortably small but every person in it would genuinely miss you if you disappeared. Read it as the two minute version of why small can be strategy, not settling.

• Ask what is the smallest group you would need to delight to make the work worthwhile
• Trying to please everyone usually means you delight no one
• A genuinely delighted small audience tends to grow larger than you expect