How not to select your beachhead market
Finding your super-specific niche, misinterpreted
I’m doing a series on how popular startup advice gets misinterpreted.
Covered before this
5 mistakes when ‘getting out of the building’
4 errors when ‘building an MVP ASAP’
This week’s mantra:
Finding a super-specific niche
A.k.a. your defining beachhead market
The 4 common mistakes
What is an early super-specific beachhead adopter market?
Whether you call it a beachhead market, early adopter or a super-specific who, most people in startup land agree: you need to start small to win big.
It’s good advice. Find that very small segment of a market you can start talking and selling to today. Not 5 years from now, but today.
What can go wrong?
Mistake 1: Not really niche
⚠️ Why mistake: The whole idea of a beachhead is that you have the smallest chunk you can bite of, to make execution easier. If you keep it broad, execution becomes hard bordering impossible, because you lack focus.
🔧 Fix: Narrow your segment, by doing interviews and experiments.
The classic mistake I see founders make is translating whatever is available to them into a market segment. Here are some examples of ‘bad’ niches.
You can combine them to give the suggestion of being specific: Young Innovators at SMEs in the Netherlands. But that still doesn’t mean much.
Mistake 2: Based on assumed demographics
⚠️ Why mistake: Where demographics and basic information might be helpful later in targeting, it doesn’t help you to understand WHY this particular segment really needs your product.
🔧 Fix: Segment your market using problems or jobs to be done. Identify the key characterstics of people with similar problems and jobs. Likely not year of birth. Skip personas.
So not these made-up characteristics:
But these evidence-based problems, jobs to be done, and unique identifiers:
Mistake 3: Defined but not influencing acquisition
⚠️ Why mistake: The only reason we do beachhead markets is to increase the likelyhood of a sale. If your segmentation doesn’t influence your marketing strategy and tactics, you are doing it wrong.
🔧 Fix: Identify which channels are getting the most ideal customers types. Rework channels that are low-yield. Ditch channels that you have tried to rework but couldn’t make it work.
Figuring out the best marketing strategy for your beachhead is the spaghetti-throwing process.
Try different things, and see what sticks.
Look at what your competitors are doing that works, copy that (you don’t need to reinvent the wheel)
Subscribe to marketing experts such as Maja Voje and Dan Kulkov.
Maja writes detailed posts like: “What’s the ROI of influencers?”
Join her online course with mentoring to nail your GTM, positioning and pricing to grow your startup.
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Dan has compiled a great self-help guide for Solo Founders
Also makes MakerBox, a marketing toolkit aimed at solopreneurs
Mythical Mistake 4: Too small
⚠️ Why mistake: You can’t build a business on a market too small
🔧 Why don’t bother fixing: It rarely happens, but people try to avoid it and therefore get too broad. For every early-stage startup with a market too small, I see 50 with an initial target market too broad.
People often are worried that their niche is too small and the revenue can’t sustain a business. The problem is, that without a niche, you won’t get decent revenue to begin with.
Can you build a business on 3 customers in total per year? Unless you are selling yachts or big-ticket SaaS, likely no.
But from a startup journey perspective, which startup is further ahead?
A startup with zero revenue and zero traction because their market is too broad
A startup with 3 paid pilots with a super small segment that allows them to learn a lot about customers and solutions and get ideas about what markets to pivot into.
I know my answer.