In this article, you will learn how to use a data-driven method to find an audience for your side business. I’ve seen this approach work for several founders, allowing them to discover an audience that not only would sustain a business for many years, but also make it an enjoyable journey.
在本文中，您将学习如何使用数据驱动的方法来寻找副业的受众。 我已经见过这种方法对几位创始人有效，使他们能够发现一个不仅可以维持业务多年而且还使旅途愉快的听众。
Before we get to the step-by-step guide, I would like to address one particular problem that many newly minted entrepreneurs have, particularly when they come from an engineering background: They severely underestimate the importance of an audience—with devastating consequences.
在逐步指南之前，我想解决许多新创立的企业家面临的一个特殊问题，尤其是当他们来自工程学背景时：他们严重低估了受众的重要性，并带来了灾难性的后果。
Have you ever been to a museum only to be shoved through a gift shop on your way out? The gift shops are not the main attractions, yet they contribute significantly to those institutions’ bottom lines. But no entrepreneur in their right mind would open a museum gift shop in their garage and expect it to make a profit. A store stocked with art prints and interior design books needs a very specific audience. Museums have understood that to sell art-related books to people, they need to put the store where their artsy audience already is: on their way out of an exhibition. Museums have understood a core rule of a successful business: find your audience first, then sell them something that they need. They think “audience-first.”
您是否曾经去过博物馆，但在出门时被推过礼品店？ 礼品店并不是主要景点，但它们为这些机构的底线做出了巨大贡献。 但是，没有一个拥有正确想法的企业家会在他们的车库里开设一家博物馆礼品店，并期望它能够盈利。 拥有艺术品和室内设计书籍的商店需要非常特定的受众。 博物馆了解到，要向人们出售与艺术相关的书籍，他们需要将商店放置在其艺术爱好者所处的位置：在离开展览的途中。 博物馆了解成功经营的核心原则：首先找到您的听众，然后向他们出售所需的东西。 他们认为“观众至上”。
If museums have understood that, why do we still see so many founders creating solutions searching for a problem? Why do so many entrepreneurs strain their minds to find a “good business idea,” jump to building the product, and then wonder why they can’t seem to find anyone to buy their solution? And how can you avoid making this exact same mistake while building your own business?
如果博物馆了解这一点，为什么我们仍然看到这么多创始人创建解决方案来寻找问题？ 为什么这么多企业家会全神贯注地寻找一个“好商业主意”，跳楼去开发产品，然后想知道为什么他们似乎找不到人来购买他们的解决方案？ 在建立自己的企业时，如何避免犯同样的错误呢？
It starts with the cure to all bias: introspection. Mainly, if you’re coming from an engineering background, your perspective will be biased towards creating products. For engineers, everything is a potential product. We’re trained to create products; we’re taught to think product-first. We use products. We make products, and we know products.
首先要解决所有偏见：内省。 主要是，如果您来自工程背景，则您的观点将偏向于创建产品。 对于工程师来说，一切都是潜在的产品。 我们受过创造产品的培训； 我们被教导要以产品为先。 我们使用产品。 我们制造产品，我们知道产品。
Sadly, that often leads us to a logical fallacy: We assume that since we felt the need for a certain thing to exist, others will have the same need. We wanted it, so others will want it too. And even when it’s clear they don’t, we push ourselves to think that if we just sell it hard enough, someone will buy what we offer.
可悲的是，这常常导致我们陷入逻辑上的谬误：我们假设由于我们感到某种事物存在的必要，因此其他事物也将具有同样的需求。 我们想要它，所以其他人也会想要它。 即使很明显他们没有这样做，我们也会强迫自己去考虑，如果我们仅仅足够努力地出售它，那么有人就会购买我们提供的产品。
This approach is putting the cart before the horse. It’s the wrong way around. If we build our product first and then ask who might want to buy it, we’re leaving a lot to chance. It’s like “testing in production.” You want to check if your code is working well before you deploy it to your customers. Why not do the same for your business?
这种方法将手推车放在了马的前面。 这是错误的方法。 如果我们先生产我们的产品，然后问谁可能要购买，那么我们将有很多机会。 就像“生产测试”。 您想在将代码部署到客户之前检查代码是否运行良好。 为什么不为您的业务做同样的事情？
The best way to keep the amount of guesswork to a minimum is a “staged validation” approach. Instead of starting with an idea, building a product, and then checking if this solves a problem for someone out there, I recommend the following steps.
将猜测工作量降至最低的最佳方法是“分阶段验证”方法。 我建议您按照以下步骤操作，而不是先从一个想法开始，先构建一个产品，然后再检查这是否可以解决某个人的问题，而不是从头开始。
First, explore which audiences you want to help. Select the audience you think is most likely to support your business endeavors. Validate: Make sure the audience is interesting for you, has a good size, has exciting problems, and is willing to pay for a solution.
首先，探索您想要帮助的受众。 选择您认为最有可能支持您的业务目标的受众。 验证：请确保观众对您感兴趣，拥有适当的规模，遇到令人兴奋的问题并愿意为解决方案付费。
Then, observe that audience and detect their most critical problems. Select the most critical problem among them. Validate: Make sure the problem is truly critical, people are already looking for solutions, and it can’t be easily ignored or delegated.
然后，观察该观众并发现他们最关键的问题。 在其中选择最关键的问题。 验证：确保问题确实很严重，人们已经在寻找解决方案，并且不能轻易地将其忽略或委派。
Then, envision a solution that solves this problem within the workflow of your audience. Validate: Make sure that your solution doesn’t have unintended side-effects and solves their problem without adding more additional work.
然后，设想一种解决方案，可以在您的受众的工作流程中解决此问题。 验证：确保您的解决方案没有意外的副作用，并且可以解决它们的问题，而无需增加其他工作。
Finally, and only now, think of the product. In which medium do you need to provide your solution? Will it be a mobile app? A SaaS application? A platform? Now is the time for the “idea” and the “product.”
最后，直到现在，再想一想产品。 您需要使用哪种介质提供解决方案？ 会是移动应用吗？ SaaS应用程序？ 一个平台？ 现在是“思想”和“产品”的时代了。
If you follow these steps, you will notice that your “idea” has to wait. It’s not a stroke of genius that comes out of nowhere, but rather, a carefully deliberated consequence of three distinct validation steps. It would be best if you learned first who is out there, what struggles they genuinely have, and how you can best help them. This way, your product’s chances to succeed are much higher than going with a completely unvalidated “idea.”
如果您按照这些步骤，您将注意到您的“想法”必须等待。 这不是天才之计，而是三个不同验证步骤的仔细考虑的结果。 最好是先了解谁在外面，他们真正遇到了哪些困难，以及如何最好地帮助他们。 这样，您产品成功的机会要比完全未经验证的“想法”高得多。
受众探索的务实方法 (A Pragmatic Approach to Audience Exploration)
The goal of this article is to help you find that initial audience. Let’s start with exploring which audience fits you best, and make sure it’s capable of supporting a business. In my mentoring work, I have discovered a five-step approach that produces remarkable results. It will allow you to find an audience that you can serve for a long time — and that will serve YOU for equally as long.
本文的目的是帮助您找到最初的受众。 让我们从探索最适合您的受众开始，并确保它能够支持业务。 在我的指导工作中，我发现了一个五步方法，该方法产生了显着的效果。 它可以让您找到可以长期服务的受众，并且可以为您提供同样长的服务。
I will suggest pragmatic steps you can take to find your optimal audience. Don’t follow those steps blindly, as they might not work as well for you as they have worked for me or my mentees. Find what works for you, and use this as the foundation of your own personal framework to tackle these problems. This five-step approach will give you data: numbers that you can inspect, weigh, and draw conclusions from. While those conclusions will be highly unique to every founder, collecting the information is very straightforward. It will give you insights into yourself that will be extremely valuable for deciding something as important as selecting the audience that you will need to work with for many years.
我将建议您采取务实的步骤来找到最佳的受众。 不要盲目地遵循这些步骤，因为它们可能对您或我的助手都不起作用。 找到最适合您的方法，并以此作为解决这些问题的个人框架的基础。 这种五步方法将为您提供数据：您可以检查，称重并得出结论的数字。 虽然这些结论对于每个创始人都是非常独特的，但是收集信息非常简单。 它将为您提供洞察自己的洞察力，这些洞察力对于决定某些重要事情(如选择您需要与之合作多年的受众)非常重要。
The result of this exercise will be a list of audiences that you can help by building a product that solves their critical problem, resulting in the opportunity of building a sustainable business. It will be a ranked list, with the most likely candidate audiences on top, and less interesting ones on the bottom.
该练习的结果将是一系列的受众，您可以通过构建可解决他们的关键问题的产品来帮助他们，从而获得建立可持续企业的机会。 这将是一个排名列表，最有可能的候选受众位于顶部，而有趣的受众排在底部。
You’ll need to take a few notes during the process. Start with an empty spreadsheet, putting “Audience Name” in the first column.
在此过程中，您需要做一些笔记。 从一个空的电子表格开始，在第一列中输入“受众名称”。
第1步：意识-考虑可能的受众 (Step 1: Awareness — Think of Possible Audiences)
To find a niche audience that will allow you to build a great business, you will first need to become aware of it. Some niches are clearly visible, and some are somewhat hidden. This step is concerned with finding them.
为了找到一个利基的受众群体，使您能够建立起出色的业务，您首先需要意识到这一点。 有些壁clearly清晰可见，有些则隐藏起来。 此步骤与找到它们有关。
The goal of this step is to find a group of people you want to help. It should be a well-defined group, best centered around a common interest or activity.
此步骤的目标是找到一组您想要帮助的人。 它应该是一个定义明确的小组，最好以共同的兴趣或活动为中心。
A tribe will work best. Tribes consist of people who share an interest, are highly interconnected, and follow the same leaders. They make for wonderful niche audiences. You might be part of quite a few tribes at this very moment.
部落将是最好的。 部落由具有共同爱好，相互联系并遵循同样领导人的人们组成。 它们造就了出色的利基受众。 您可能会在此时此刻成为许多部落的一部分。
Start with yourself, then expand from your inner circle towards the outer boundaries of the people you know.
从你自己开始，然后从你的内心圈子扩展到你认识的人的外在界限。
Ask yourself:
问你自己：
Which tribes do you belong to? What communities are you part of, consciously (because you participate, like being a Chess club member) and unconsciously (by affiliation, like being a sports fan)? It can involve virtual communities and real-world groups alike.
你属于哪个部落？ 您有意识地(因为您像参加国际象棋俱乐部的成员一样参与)和不自觉地(通过隶属关系，如成为体育迷)属于哪个社区？ 它可以涉及虚拟社区和现实世界中的群体。
What hobbies do you have? What do you enjoy enough to spend money on, even though it’s not essential? Examples here are things like craft beer or fixing up old cars. Find activities you have a budget for.
你有什么爱好？ 即使不是必须的，您花什么钱也可以享受呢？ 例如精酿啤酒或修理旧车。 查找您有预算的活动。
What professions do you have? What kinds of jobs have you been doing throughout your life? What types of professional communities have you been part of?
你有什么专业？ 您一生都在从事哪些工作？ 您参加过哪些类型的专业社区？
What is your significant other doing? Which groups do they belong to that are different from your groups? Which groups did they belong to before you met? When they were kids, which clubs and associations were they part of?
您重要的其他人在做什么？ 他们属于哪些小组，与您的小组不同？ 在您见面之前，他们属于哪个小组？ 当他们还是孩子时，他们属于哪个俱乐部和协会？
What groups do your parents and siblings belong to? What jobs are they working in, what groups do they hang out with for fun? What are the things that you talk about at family gatherings, about which they have surprising levels of insight?
您的父母和兄弟姐妹属于哪些群体？ 他们从事的工作是什么，与哪些团体一起玩耍呢？ 您在家庭聚会上谈论的是什么，他们对家庭的了解令人惊讶？
What are the social circles you frequent? Which kinds of people do you interact with? Think of a party you’ve been to recently or another social gathering. Who are the types of people you click with most, and what do they do?
您经常去哪些社交圈？ 您与哪些人互动？ 想想您最近参加过的派对或其他社交聚会。 您最常点击的人是谁，他们做什么？
The list you came up with from this exercise should contain a few dozen audiences. Let me give you an example of what my personal list would look like:
您从本练习中得出的清单应包含几十个受众。 让我举一个例子，说明我的个人清单：
For each audience on this list, I either am an expert, or I have direct access to an expert in my circle of friends and family. The full list I have collected over the last few years contains at least 300 different audiences. I bet you can come up with at least 100 distinct groups of people within a few hours.
对于此列表中的每个受众，我要么是专家，要么可以直接与我的朋友和家人圈子中的专家交流。 我在过去几年中收集的完整列表包含至少300个不同的受众。 我敢打赌，您可以在几个小时内提出至少100个不同的人群。
Another way of finding audiences that you might not already be aware of is by looking at the things around you. For every object you see, think about 1) who made it, 2) how did they make it, 3) who it is for, and 4) how it is used. While 1 and 4 give you audiences immediately, 2 and 3 allow you to think about the interactions that the object went through either while it was made (think of all the many businesses and activities involved in the production chain of something like a sheet of paper: forestry, logging, paper mills, distribution, sales, marketing) or while it is being used (let’s stick with paper: pen makers, printer factories, publishers, editors, book club organizers, wedding table card printers). Most objects, when examined like that, will bring to mind a few dozen audiences.
寻找您可能尚未意识到的受众的另一种方法是查看周围的事物。 因为你看到的每一个对象，想想1)是谁做的如何使用它，2)他们是怎么做的，3)它是谁，以及4)。 虽然1和4可以立即为您提供受众，但是2和3可以让您考虑对象在制造过程中所经历的交互作用(想像一下纸质产品生产链中涉及的所有许多业务和活动。 ：林业，伐木，造纸厂，分销，销售，市场营销)或正在使用时(如纸：钢笔制造商，打印机工厂，出版商，编辑，读书会组织者，婚礼桌卡打印机)。 像这样检查时，大多数对象都会使几十个听众联想到。
You’ll be done with this step when you have a few dozen, best around a hundred or more audiences. You’re trying to find so many to open up your mind about what different things people do and group up around. It’s important to step out of your comfort zone and expand the horizon of what you can work with. The real impact of transferable skills lies where they have not yet been transferred to. You are trying to find those places here.
当您有几十个观众，最好是一百或更多的观众时，就可以完成此步骤。 您正试图找到这么多人来打开您的想法，以了解人们在做什么和分组周围有哪些不同的事情。 重要的是要走出舒适区并扩大可以使用的范围。 可转移技能的真正影响在于尚未转移到的地方。 您正在尝试在这里找到那些地方。
第2步：亲和力-了解您对他们的关心程度 (Step 2: Affinity — Find Out How Much You Care About Them)
With a list of possible audiences and niches, you now need to weed out the markets you don’t care about. No business was ever successfully built by a founder who didn’t care about the people they were selling their product to. You need to care to help your customers genuinely, or you will lose interest in providing value to them at some point.
有了可能的受众和利基列表，您现在需要清除不关心的市场。 创始人不关心自己将产品销售给谁的人，没有成功建立任何业务。 您需要注意真正地帮助您的客户，否则您有时会失去为他们提供价值的兴趣。
This is a very subjective step in the process. You will need to think for a few minutes about the kinds of people you expect to work within each industry. This is best done by asking yourself a few questions for each audience and giving every audience a score.
这是过程中非常主观的步骤。 您需要思考几分钟，以了解您希望在每个行业工作的人员类型。 最好通过向每个观众问几个问题并给每个观众打分来完成。
Add a new column to your spreadsheet, called “Affinity.” For every row in your spreadsheet, you will need to produce a rating between zero and ten. Zero means that you don’t care about serving this audience at all, and ten means that you want to devote your life to serving the people in that niche.
在电子表格中添加一个新列，称为“亲和力”。 对于电子表格中的每一行，您都需要产生一个介于0到10之间的评分。 零表示您根本不关心为该受众群体提供服务，而十表示您希望将自己的一生致力于为该细分市场中的人们提供服务。
To find out how much affinity you have for an audience, ask yourself these questions, and quickly note down a 0–10 rating for each.
要了解您对观众的亲和力，请问自己以下问题，并Swift记下每个问题0-10的评分。
- Do you think the audience members need help that has not been given to them in the past? 您是否认为听众需要过去从未给予过的帮助？
- Do you think that the members of this audience deserve to succeed much more than they currently do? 您是否认为该听众的成员应该比现在拥有更多的成功？
- Do you imagine conversations with these people to be interesting, fruitful, and enjoyable? 您认为与这些人的对话有趣，富有成果且令人愉快吗？
- Do you see a more profound reason, a passion that drives the members of this audience to do what they do? 您是否看到一个更深刻的原因，一种驱使该受众群体成员去做自己的工作的热情？
- Is the audience doing something meaningful? 听众在做有意义的事情吗？
- Could the people in this niche be doing something more substantial? 这个利基市场中的人们会做些更重要的事情吗？
- Do you think you would benefit from learning a lot about the work in this niche? 您认为从这个利基市场中了解很多工作后会受益吗？
When you have answered all these questions, add up the point values you gave and divide them by the number of questions you asked yourself to find the average. This number is an indicator of how much you care about the audience.
回答完所有这些问题后，将您给定的点值相加，然后除以您要求的问题数量即可得出平均值。 这个数字表明您对观众的关心程度。
Once you have done this, sort your list by the affinity average, descending. That view alone is often eye-opening, as you will see clusters appear. There will be a cluster of things you care about because you are part of those audiences. That’s a great source of potential businesses, as you will be solving your own problems. Another exciting cluster is the group of audiences that you are genuinely interested in because a particular passion or a mission drives them. Here, you will find eager audience members, willing to try out anything that makes their job easier, because they believe it’s an important job to do.
完成此操作后，请按亲和力平均值降序对列表进行排序。 您将看到群集的出现，仅此观点通常令人大开眼界。 您会关心一堆事情，因为您是这些受众的一部分。 这将是潜在业务的重要来源，因为您将要解决自己的问题。 另一个令人兴奋的群体是您真正感兴趣的一组观众，因为他们的特定热情或使命感驱动他们。 在这里，您会发现渴望的受众群体成员，他们愿意尝试使他们的工作更轻松的任何事情，因为他们认为这是一项重要的工作。
Beware of prejudices at this stage. I suggest talking to your “resident experts” for each niche to get a feeling for the audience from the inside. Only then should you step through the questions.
在此阶段要当心偏见。 我建议与您的每个细分市场的“驻地专家”交谈，以使内部观众感受到。 只有这样，您才应该逐步解决问题。
Move the audiences with an affinity of 5 or less to another sheet of your spreadsheet. They’re not prime targets for now, but you might change your mind later. We’re interested only in audiences you care about at this point, as this will be a requirement for spending significant time and effort on the exploration and validation that follow now.
将亲和力在5或以下的受众群体移动到电子表格的另一张纸上。 它们暂时不是主要目标，但您稍后可能会改变主意。 目前，我们仅对您关心的受众感兴趣，因为这将是花费大量时间和精力进行后续探索和验证的要求。
步骤3：机会-找出他们是否有有趣的问题 (Step 3: Opportunity — Find Out If They Have Interesting Problems)
With a trimmed-down list, you’re ready for the next step. For each audience, you will want to find out if they have any interesting problems. You’re not looking into finding their critical problem just yet, as you will only take a quick cursory view into your audience at this point, but be on the lookout nonetheless. If you see something that they really need help with, that’s a good sign.
有了精简清单，您就可以进行下一步了。 对于每个观众，您将希望了解他们是否有任何有趣的问题。 您现在还没有在寻找他们的关键问题，因为此时您只能快速粗略地查看您的受众，但仍要保持警惕。 如果您看到他们确实需要帮助的东西，那是一个好兆头。
For each audience, do the following things to find out if they have interesting problems.
对于每个观众，请执行以下操作以发现他们是否有有趣的问题。
Find a few SaaS products in their space and see what problems they solve. Are these genuinely exciting problems? Does solving these problems make a difference in a good way?
在他们的空间中找到一些SaaS产品，看看他们解决了什么问题。 这些是真正令人兴奋的问题吗？ 解决这些问题是否有很好的效果？
Find a community forum or social media group where your niche audience hangs out and go through their recent posts. Are people struggling with things that you would find interesting to help them with?
寻找一个社区论坛或社交媒体组，您的小众受众群体在那里闲逛并浏览他们的最新帖子。 人们是否正在努力寻找可以帮助他们的有趣事物？
Here are a few places to start looking for this information, with examples for an example audience, plumbers:
这里是一些开始查找此信息的地方，并提供了示例观众(例如管道工)的示例：
Watering holes. These are the informal communities of your niche. This is where they gather without being asked to, where they exchange information freely and without supervision.
水坑。 这些是您利基市场的非正式社区。 在这里，他们无需询问就可以聚集在一起，在没有监督的情况下自由地交换信息。
Facebook groups, e.g., “Plumbing Hacks And Plumbing Professional Discussions.” You might need to work a bit to get into these groups, but explaining that you’re interested in helping people and promising not to post advertisements will usually do the trick.
Facebook小组，例如“管道黑客和管道专业讨论”。 您可能需要花些时间才能进入这些小组，但是如果您说明自己有兴趣帮助他人并承诺不发布广告，通常就可以解决问题。
Reddit, e.g. the “Plumbing”, “HVAC”, and “Construction” subreddits. People ask a lot of questions on Reddit, and they talk very openly about things they dislike.
Reddit ，例如“ Plumbing”，“ HVAC”和“ Construction”子reddit。 人们在Reddit上问了很多问题，他们公开谈论自己不喜欢的事情。
Twitter, by exploring the #plumbing hashtag and following and engaging with the experts who use it.
通过探索#plumbing主题标签并关注并与使用它的专家进行互动，在Twitter上进行操作。
Self-hosted communities, like PlumbingZone.com (a forum with over 30.000 professional members) or PlumbersForums.net. Spend a few hours reading the threads and follow all links to further communities and blogs to find the experts and thought leaders, then follow them on social media. The more the community looks like a website from the 90s, the better. Older communities attract and contain a lot of industry veterans.
自我托管的社区，例如PlumbingZone.com(拥有超过30.000专业会员的论坛)或PlumbersForums.net。 花几个小时阅读主题，并通过链接访问其他社区和博客，以找到专家和思想领袖，然后在社交媒体上关注他们。 从90年代开始，社区越像一个网站，那就越好。 较老的社区吸引并容纳了许多行业资深人士。
Slack communities. Many trades and industries have Slack groups where experts interact on a daily basis. Use Slack community discovery platforms like Slofile or many others to find potential candidates.
闲散的社区。 许多行业都有Slack组，专家每天都在其中交流。 使用Slack社区发现平台(例如Slofile或其他许多平台)来寻找潜在的候选人。
Formal communities. Most trades have some organizational bodies like associations and guilds that form some sort of virtual communities. For our example, the “United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada” has a website that contains a community and listings of subchapters. Just sending an email to community representatives or a phone call can put you in touch with the right people.
正式社区。 大多数行业都有一些组织机构，例如协会和行会，它们形成某种虚拟社区。 对于我们的示例，“美国和加拿大的管道工和管道工业联合职业和学徒联合会”拥有一个包含社区和子章节列表的网站。 只需向社区代表发送电子邮件或打个电话，就能使您与合适的人保持联系。
Event resources. Find the trade shows and conferences of your audience and check out their websites. Which vendors were present? What topics were discussed? Usually, keynote speakers and their talks are listed, if not even recorded.
活动资源。 找到您的观众的贸易展览和会议，并查看他们的网站。 哪些供应商在场？ 讨论了哪些主题？ 通常，即使没有录制，也会列出主旨演讲者及其演讲。
Literature. Every industry has writers who publish papers, books, articles, or comments. Find the popular books in the niche, read them, or find summaries to get a quick glance into the topics they cover.
文学。 每个行业都有作家发表论文，书籍，文章或评论。 在利基市场中找到流行的书籍，阅读它们或查找摘要，以快速浏览它们涵盖的主题。
I recommend spending an hour for each audience on your list. Dive as deep as you can into the industry to see what problems and complaints you can surface. Make a note of what exists, what doesn’t exist, in particular, what you thought would exist but didn’t. This is an indicator of the potential transfer of knowledge that you might facilitate.
我建议您为列表中的每个受众花费一个小时。 尽可能深入地研究行业，以发现可能出现的问题和投诉。 记下存在的东西，不存在的东西，特别是您认为会存在但不存在的东西。 这表明您可能会促进潜在的知识转移。
For every row in your audience list, take a few notes about the problems you encountered (best done outside of the spreadsheet, in a Google Doc or a Notion document), and add another 0–10 value column indicating how interesting those problems sounded to you. Move the rows that don’t have exciting problems to another sheet, just like you did with the low-affinity rows.
对于您的受众群体列表中的每一行，记下您遇到的问题(最好在电子表格外部，在Google Doc或Notion文档中完成)，并添加另一个0–10值列，以表明这些问题听起来很有趣您。 将没有令人兴奋的问题的行移至另一张工作表，就像处理低亲和力的行一样。
第4步：欣赏-了解他们是否愿意付款 (Step 4: Appreciation — Find Out If They’re Willing to Pay)
In this step, you’re trying to figure out if your audience has a budget for a solution to their problem. That’s more likely in some audiences than in others: a haircare product supplier business with hundreds of employees will have no problem paying for a customer relationship management software. In contrast, a hairstylist, although they also work in the beauty industry and have to build relationships with their customers, might not have any budget available or wouldn’t pay for this at all.
在此步骤中，您试图确定观众是否有预算来解决他们的问题。 在某些受众群体中，这种可能性更大：在拥有数百名员工的护发产品供应商企业中，购买客户关系管理软件毫无疑问。 相比之下，发型师虽然也从事美容行业，并且必须与顾客建立关系，但他们可能没有任何可用预算或根本不会为此付费。
For each audience in your list, look for signs of the following:
对于列表中的每个受众，请寻找以下迹象：
Purchasing agency: Can the people you’ll be selling to make their own decisions when it comes to buying a professional tool? Will you have to make classic sales, or can you sell in a more low-touch, highly automated way? The less work and the fewer people involved, the better.
采购代理：在购买专业工具时，您将要出售的人员可以做出自己的决定吗？ 您将要进行经典销售，还是可以以一种低接触，高度自动化的方式进行销售？ 工作越少，涉及的人越少，越好。
Budget scope: What kinds of budgets can your prospective customers in this niche usually spend on products and services? Look into other services that cater to your prospects to see how they are priced. Think about if people are even aware that they have a budget for professional tools.
预算范围：在这个细分市场中，您的潜在客户通常可以在产品和服务上花费哪些预算？ 查看其他适合潜在客户的服务，以了解其定价。 考虑一下人们是否甚至意识到他们有预算用于专业工具。
When we sold FeedbackPanda to online teachers, they often didn’t even understand that they were self-employed businesspeople. Sometimes, you will need to create awareness within your niche that they could improve their ways in a tax-efficient manner.
当我们将FeedbackPanda出售给在线老师时，他们甚至常常不了解自己是自雇商人。 有时，您需要在利基市场中建立意识，使他们意识到可以以节税的方式改善自己的方式。
The more agency and reliable budgets you find in an audience, the better. If you see people complain about solutions being too expensive or that they should be free, you can usually dismiss that, as these voices appear in every industry. However, if this is the consensus within the communities you find, beware. You might run into walls trying to convince people to exchange money for services here.
您在受众群体中找到的代理机构越多，预算越可靠，效果越好。 如果您看到人们抱怨解决方案太昂贵或应该免费，则通常可以不理会，因为这些声音出现在每个行业中。 但是，如果这是您发现的社区内的共识，请当心。 您可能会碰壁，试图说服人们为这里的服务换钱。
For every audience that you think is likely to pay or can be convinced to start budgeting for a solution to their problems, add another 0–10 value to their row in your list. Move the audiences that have no clear indicator of purchasing intent to another sheet.
对于您认为可能会付钱或可以说服他们开始预算解决问题的每个受众，请在列表中的行中添加另一个0–10的值。 将没有明确购买意图指示的受众群体移至另一张表。
第5步：规模-找出这个市场是否可以维持业务 (Step 5: Size — Find Out If This Market Can Sustain a Business)
The last step of finding a good audience for your sustainable bootstrapped business will make sure your business will actually be viable. Once you’re done with this step, you will end up with a list of businesses that you can build solutions for with a high chance of turning that into a business.
为您的自举自足的可持续业务寻找好的受众的最后一步将确保您的业务切实可行。 完成此步骤后，您将获得一份可以建立其解决方案的业务列表，很有可能将其转化为业务。
For bootstrappers, a market has to be both large enough to sustain your business, and small enough not to attract giant competitors. To be able to find this “Goldilocks zone,” you will need to know how big your business will have to be to support you. For some founders, this will be $10,000/month in after-tax earnings, while others will need this to be much more or a bit less.
对于引导者来说，市场既要足够大以维持您的业务，又要足够小以不吸引巨大的竞争对手。 为了能够找到这个“戈尔迪洛克区”，您将需要知道您的业务将需要多大才能支持您。 对于某些创始人而言，这将是每月10,000美元的税后收入，而对于另一些创始人而言，则需要更多或更少。
Take that number, double it, and divide it by the price that you think your audience would pay for a software product. That will be the number of customers you need to have, at least, to get to your desired income levels.
将该数字乘以两倍，然后除以您认为受众将为软件产品支付的价格。 至少要达到所需的收入水平，这就是您需要拥有的客户数量。
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you need $15,000/month to support yourself and your family from your SaaS. Doubled, that is $30,000. You have found that in your niche audience of “artisanal beekeepers in New Jersey,” the average budget for a bee-tracking SaaS is $15/month max. You need 2,000 customers. You need 2,000 artisanal beekeepers in New Jersey. If you look up the New Jersey Beekeepers Association (and yes, that exists), you find that they have eight chapters with a lot of emails and phone numbers on their website. Call a few of them and tell them that you love beekeeping and would like to help your local honey producers. The person on the other end of the line will be able to tell you immediately if you have your 2,000-people-strong audience or not.
让我们来看一个例子。 假设您每月需要$ 15,000来通过SaaS支持自己和家人。 增加一倍，即$ 30,000。 您已经发现，在“新泽西州传统养蜂人”的小众受众中，跟踪SaaS的蜜蜂的平均预算最高为$ 15 /月。 您需要2,000个客户。 在新泽西州，您需要2,000名手工养蜂人。 如果您查找新泽西州养蜂人协会(是的，那是存在的)，就会发现他们有八个章节，网站上有很多电子邮件和电话号码。 给其中几个人打电话，告诉他们您喜欢养蜂业，并希望帮助您当地的蜂蜜生产商。 如果您的观众人数不超过2,000人，则电话另一端的人将能够立即告诉您。
I’ve done this multiple times, with a lot of industries. It is always very insightful, and once you know the size of a market, you have valuable information, even if you don’t get into that particular industry.
我已经在很多行业做过多次。 它总是非常有见地，一旦您知道了市场的规模，便会获得有价值的信息，即使您没有进入该特定行业也是如此。
Other sources of quickly determining market sizes are social media group user counts, trade show flyers, industry reports, and sending emails to podcast hosts in niche industries.
快速确定市场规模的其他来源是社交媒体组用户数量，贸易展览传单，行业报告以及向利基行业的播客主持人发送电子邮件。
Spend as much time as you need to figure out if an audience is big enough for your business. Then, make sure there are not millions of potential customers in your niche. If you own a small, bootstrapped, sustainable business, you won’t have the resources to go up against gigantic competitors with deep pockets. Your niche should not be attractive enough for those businesses.
花尽可能多的时间来确定受众群体是否足以满足您的业务需求。 然后，确保您的利基市场中没有数百万潜在客户。 如果您经营一家小型，自举自足，可持续发展的企业，那么您将没有资源与财大气粗的巨大竞争对手抗衡。 您的利基市场对那些企业应该没有足够的吸引力。
Looking back at the beekeeper example, if your audience is anywhere between 2,000 and 40,000 beekeepers, that would be great. Anything bigger might mean competition from much larger businesses that sense the opportunity to take over your niche completely and serve all beekeepers everywhere.
回顾养蜂人的例子，如果您的听众在2,000至40,000个养蜂人之间，那就太好了。 任何更大的事情都可能意味着来自更大企业的竞争，这些企业意识到有机会完全接管您的利基市场并为世界各地的所有养蜂人提供服务。
For each audience on your list, add another 0–10 value indicating if the niche is sized just right for your bootstrapped business aspirations. Ten should be a perfectly sized market. Zero is a market that is either way too small or way too big. Move the audiences that don’t fit onto another sheet.
对于列表中的每个受众，添加另一个0到10的值，以指示适当位置的大小是否正好适合您引导的业务期望。 十个市场应该是一个理想的规模。 零市场要么太小要么太大。 将不适合的观众转移到另一张纸上。
计算结果 (Tallying the Results)
You now will be left with a number of audiences that have passed the following checkpoints:
现在，您将获得许多通过以下检查点的受众：
You’re aware of the niche
你知道的利基
You’re interested in the niche
您对利基感兴趣
You’ve found interesting problems in the niche
您已经在利基市场发现了有趣的问题
You’ve seen signs of interest to pay for solutions of the niche
您已经看到有兴趣为利基解决方案付费的迹象
You’ve found that the niche is big enough for your business
您已经发现利基足以满足您的业务
In your spreadsheet, create one final column, adding the point values for each row. Then, sort the whole table so that the highest total point values appear on top.
在电子表格中，创建最后一列，为每一行添加点值。 然后，对整个表格进行排序，以使最高的总分值显示在顶部。
A quick side-note: this is only a framework that you might want to customize for your own needs. You can add more columns with other considerations, or change the range of values for each column to reflect how important that particular consideration is to you. At it’s most basic, this spreadsheet will give you a hint of which audience is the most likely to allow you to build a successful and fulfilling business. I wouldn’t overcomplicate this process too much — and I’m saying this as a software engineer.
一个简短的旁注：这只是您可能要针对自己的需求进行定制的框架。 您可以添加具有其他注意事项的更多列，或更改每列的值范围以反映特定注意事项对您的重要性。 从最基本的角度来看，此电子表格将提示您哪些受众最有可能使您建立成功且充实的业务。 我不会使这个过程过于复杂-我是作为软件工程师说的。
With this list, you are ready to choose your audience. Once you have selected one of the items on your list, I suggest doing another deep dive into the industry. Read up on the history of the trade, see who already sells into the industry, and how they speak to their customers.
使用此列表，您可以选择您的受众。 一旦您选择了列表中的一项，我建议您再次深入该行业。 阅读交易历史，了解谁已经进入该行业，以及他们如何与客户交流。
After this point, you will stick with your audience and focus on helping them solve their problems. Finding and validating their critical problem is your next objective. Once you have done that, you can work on your solution and implement your product — knowing that you are building for a validated audience.
在此之后，您将与观众保持一致，并专注于帮助他们解决问题。 找到并验证其关键问题是您的下一个目标。 完成此操作后，您就可以开发解决方案并实施产品-知道您正在为经过验证的受众群体进行建设。
The great thing about this exercise is that you don’t only end up with a few really interesting audiences to get started with right away, but you also have all those other audiences that got excluded during some steps along the way. In the future, either when you sell your business or when the world changes in a major way, you’ll already have new audiences waiting to be explored again, with fresh eyes. It’s a backlog of pre-validated audiences that you know you could serve. Talk about a safety cushion.
这项练习的妙处在于，您不仅最终会吸引到一些真正有趣的受众，而且还让所有其他受众在此过程中的某些步骤中被排除在外。 将来，无论是出售您的业务还是当世界发生重大变化时，您都已经有了新的受众群体，等待着您重新焕发新的眼光。 这是您知道可以提供服务的积压的预先验证的受众群体。 谈谈安全垫。
But for now, stick with the audience that the data says is the best choice. Dive deep into the communities and tribes, and figure out what those people need help with. From there, you can build a sustainable business that solves their problem in a validated fashion, without any guesswork.
但就目前而言，坚持说数据是最好的选择。 深入研究社区和部落，找出那些人需要帮助的地方。 从那里，您可以建立可持续的业务，以经过验证的方式解决他们的问题，而无需进行任何猜测。
翻译自: https://medium.com/better-programming/finding-an-audience-for-your-side-business-66ecd59d9c9c