When embarking on a software development project, perhaps the most important question to be able to answer is "Who will use this product and why?" Sure, it's great to develop something that's technically interesting from a programming standpoint, but if there are no customers lined up to use your offering, it's nothing more than a portfolio piece. This is why teams spend time on the front end of a project getting to know their customers... even before they exist!

The first stage of this is to brainstorm a few User Personas. User Personas are written documents that describe your ideal target customer. Without an ideal customer, it will be incredibly hard to know what features to develop, or to prioritize how important they are in the order of operations. Let's use the example of a financial planning site that helps people plan for retirement. Other such sites exist, so it's up to you and your team to find a niche to serve better than anyone else, and one whose members will actually pay for your services.

Step 1: Defining the Broad Target Market

Someone on your team comes up with:

Our target market is 30-something Chinese women.

Hmmm, okay. While it may be accurate, this description lacks life. This describes hundreds of thousands of potential customers, which certainly bodes well for potential sales. But the women that fit this description exhibit an enormous range of beliefs and habits. Who is this woman -- YOUR woman -- and why does she value a financial education? Why would she seek that education online, and how how and when would she choose to consume it? Let's try again.

Step 2: What Does Your Customer Need?

Check out this revised User Persona:

Our target customer is a professional woman in her early 30s living in mainland China. She needs easy access to financial education, because she doesn't have time to take off work to learn about planning for her future. She makes between 50k and 100k USD per year. She is not married.

Well, that certainly tells us more about our customer base than the first statement! And it will be easy enough to determine whether this market segment actually exists and how big it might be in broad terms. But it's still kind of impersonal. And while it states what she seeks, it doesn't delve too far into why she needs it, and how she will interact with the product. Ready to refine?

Step 3: Why Does Your Customer Need This?

The third iteration of our User Persona reads:

Mei is 32 years old. She has a job at a large company in Beijing, and earns approximately $75k USD per year before taxes. Her company offers a retirement plan, but she doesn't really know much about it except that it is available. Her parents grew up in a small village, and Mei is the first person in her family to work in a large city or to earn the sums of money that she does. Every month, she sends 20% of what she makes home to her parents to help support them and her two young siblings. She knows she should also be investing for her future, but does not know where to start. And living in a city is far more expensive than she remembers about growing up. She would like to ask one of her mostly male coworkers, but she had to work hard to get her position and doesn't want to be seen as weak or unskilled. Because she works long hours, she does not have time to take off work to attend a financial literacy seminar.

Wow! Now we're getting somewhere! Mei has emotions, reasons. We understand her lifestyle and the reason that she may not have anyone to advise her on money matters. We understand her money mentality and how this plays out in her life. This is someone we can sell to. But there's still one thing missing from this description. How much would Mei value having access to the particular service we hope to sell, even when we don't exactly know yet what that will look like?

Step 4: How Much Does Your Customer Value This?

Time to round the bases and head home. Let's view an all-star User Persona:

Mei is 32 years old. She has a job at a large company in Beijing, and earns approximately $75k USD per year before taxes. Her company offers a retirement plan, but she doesn't really know much about it except that it is available. Mei is the first person in her family to work in a large city or to earn the sums of money that she does. Every month, she sends 20% of what she makes home to her parents to help support them and her two younger siblings. She knows she should also be investing for her future, but does not know where to start. She would like to ask one of her mostly male coworkers, but she had to work hard to get her position and doesn't want to be seen as weak or unskilled.

While Mei spends sensibly, she is stylish and tech savvy and has a latest generation phone. She does not mind paying a small percentage of her monthly salary to someone to manage her finances, but her independent nature makes her want to develop a deep understanding of where her money goes and why. Living in a city is far more expensive than she remembers about growing up, but at the end of the month, she does have cash left over. Usually, she spends some of it on entertainment, and saves a bit in a bank account. Because she works long hours, she does not have time to take off work to attend a financial literacy seminar. However, she does commute on the train to work each day, with a total round-trip commute time of 1 hour. Her goal is to be able to comfortably retire within 27 years, by the age of 60, knowing that both she and her younger siblings will be secure for the remainder of their lives, as well as any children she may have in the future.

Mei has become a full fledged person. I feel like I have some idea of what we'd talk about if we went to dinner together. We on the team can use the idea of Mei and her life to investigate how many people like her exist, whether it's a big enough market to serve profitably, and what sorts of features might be important to her.

Step 5: Mining for Golden Customer Insights

So, looking through the lens of Mei, let's think about some possible features we might offer in a financial education product to appeal to her.

Mei has indicated a willingness to pay a portion of her annual salary to have the rest of it managed better. She's also indicated a desire to educate herself on the topic. Of course, she doesn't have a lot of time to fit this education in her day, but she does see the importance of it. Offering an online course that could be completed within the timeframe of her daily commute would allow her to utilize that already-spent time for self development. Since she works long hours, it might be helpful to make investment decisions like opening accounts from her smartphone on the go, rather than having to visit bank branches, whose hours largely coincide with standard workdays. Because she has no one to talk to about money issues, she might value some sort of interaction with fellow classmates, and/or a mentor. She has a clearly defined investment horizon, but may lack some of the details about how much she needs to accomplish her stated goals. Therefore, a calculator might help her see what she needs to save, and whether more fully utilizing her employer's resources will speed that path. Would this product be worthy of 1% of her annual salary, or $7500? Half that? What would it earn her in returns (which is value created for her)? Will this be a perpetual program or a one-time course? How many other women like Mei are living in China right now, experiencing a similar set of frustrations and desires?

Finding Your Target Market and Offerings

Researching whether you have a target market worth serving is now just a matter of finding women like Mei and asking their opinions on the matter. While it may seems silly to narrow your customer this much, serving a smaller segment of the overall population with EXACTLY what they crave is easier to do than to try to be everything to everybody. While Mei may not be the only User Persona your team creates (nor should it be!), you now have a vision in mind for how to exceptionally serve this segment of your potential user base, and can start discussing what features she would most value to prioritize from the ones you plan to offer.

Of course, all this has to be backed up with actual user data at some point in the development process. It is possible to create a User Persona for a person that doesn't actually exist or that exists but values entirely different things. But by clearly defining your target market, you now know who to approach in the real world for user feedback.

I hope this article in my @Hashnode Technical Writing Bootcamp series helped you understand the process of developing a strong User Persona early in the product development cycle. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we dive into breaking down this User Persona into actionable User Stories and utilizing them when creating a product roadmap. If you have any questions or would like to add to this discussion, comment below! 👇