Discover Your Target Customers With Behavioral Segmentation
A practical playbook for early-stage founders working through customer discovery and business model validation.
Know who you are building for — before you build.
A practical playbook for early-stage founders working through customer discovery and business model validation.
Know who you are building for — before you build.
Most founders build too early and validate too late.
This playbook helps you avoid that.
Understand user behaviour instead of relying on assumptions
Identify meaningful customer segments
Surface real pain points across competing solutions
Translate insights directly into your MVP approach
A structured way to know who you are building for — before you build.
The playbook is divided into three simple sections.
A concise foundation covering segmentation, behavioural insights, "jobs", pain points, and competition.
Not theory-heavy — just what's necessary to apply the method correctly.
Templates for:
Defining the user's job
Mapping direct / indirect / substitute alternatives
Spotting challenges and behavioural patterns
Grouping users into segments
Prioritising the segments worth exploring first
Designed so you can work through it independently and reach clarity quickly.
Guidance on how your segmentation feeds into:
Hypothesis-setting
MVP experiments
Customer interviews
Refinement cycles
Your path from assumptions → validation.
Just getting started or still shaping your offering
Multiple potential segments but unclear focus
Know there's a problem but can't define it precisely
Need a beginner-friendly discovery framework
If you're still shaping your model, the playbook gives you a sharp starting point.
Talk about demographics or personas
Focuses on behaviour — what people actually do, not what they say
Practical, example-driven guidance
Worksheets that reduce guesswork
A method grounded in real customer discovery practice
A framework simple enough to finish in a weekend
It closes the gap between "I have an idea" and "I know who this is for."
Startup-Side works with early-stage founders to help them identify target segments, articulate pain points, and validate business model hypotheses.
If you need support interpreting your segmentation or shaping your next steps:
Book a 30-minute NSA callBuilt for early-stage founders
Proven frameworks & methods
Personalized guidance available
A clear, founder-friendly way to understand your customer before you build.
No spam. Just the playbook and occasional helpful resources.