How To Choose Your Target Market

How should entrepreneurs choose their target market

“stop trying to choose who's going to buy your stuff and let them”

— Eben Pagan▶ 1:02

Instead of planning who should buy your product, find groups of people who already want to buy something and create it for them. Start with the customer's perspective rather than trying to choose who will buy your stuff.

What is use case thinking and how do you practice it

“we use exercises to tune our brains okay we use the exercise to train our mind to do this automatically”

— Eben Pagan▶ 1:33

Use case thinking is a framework that trains your mind to automatically think from the customer's perspective. Practice it by doing exercises on paper repeatedly until your mind starts doing it automatically - it's like training wheels for customer-centered thinking.

Why do customers make irrational purchasing decisions

“all of the stuff all that motivates us is irrational it doesn't make any sense”

— Eben Pagan▶ 2:03

All customer motivation is driven by irrational fears, desires, thoughts and fantasies. People make emotional decisions first, then use logic to rationalize them afterward, not the other way around.

What is the difference between market validation and emotional estimation

“emotional estimation and seeing only validation at its best is sitting back and thinking okay I'm going to create this thing and I know who it's created for”

— Eben Pagan▶ 0:32

Emotional estimation is sitting back and planning who should buy your product and trying to talk them into wanting it. True validation is finding out something customers already want and then giving it to them.

How do golf club purchases demonstrate irrational buying behavior

“we think in terms of when I roll up with my golf bag and I put it in the cart and my friends see it sticking out they're gonna be like yeah”

— Eben Pagan▶ 2:36

Golf club buyers don't calculate the rational value (17 cents per drive improvement). Instead, they imagine friends seeing the club in their golf bag and being impressed, make the emotional decision, then rationalize it with math afterward.

The Universal Target Market Selection Mistake

Eben reveals that entrepreneurs universally make the mistake of planning who should buy their products instead of finding people who already want to buy something. This creator-centered approach leads to trying to convince people rather than serving existing needs.

Use Case Thinking Exercise Framework

Eben introduces use case thinking as a systematic approach to shift from creator-centered to customer-centered thinking. The framework requires regular practice with written exercises until the mind automatically thinks from the customer's perspective.

Understanding Irrational Customer Motivations

Using golf club purchases as an example, Eben demonstrates how all customer motivation is irrational and driven by emotions. People make decisions based on fantasies and social validation, then rationalize them with logic afterward.