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Audience Building

Part of Building a creator audience from the first hundred followers

Choosing one audience problem to build around

Compare possible audience problems by specificity, evidence, your ability to help and room for useful follow-up content.

Growth Desk · · 2 min read

Choose a problem a recognisable group encounters, that you can answer credibly, and that leads to more than one useful piece. Treat it as a starting question for your work, not a claim that every member of the audience has the same need.

Name the problem in the audience's terms

A subject like “audio” is too broad to guide an early creator. “Teachers recording lessons at home struggle to make speech clear” is closer to usable. It names who is trying to do what and where the difficulty appears.

Write candidate problems as situations: “When [person] tries to [task], they get stuck on [obstacle].” Don't settle on a solution before you understand the obstacle. People asking which microphone to buy may need to know whether placement or room noise makes their recordings difficult to hear.

Collect examples from conversations you have permission to use, questions on your existing work, and public discussions you can read in context. Keep people's wording where possible, but don't present a handful of comments as market research. With no audience yet, treat the problem as a hypothesis.

Compare candidates before committing

For each candidate, check the evidence and your ability to help:

QuestionWhat to look for
Is the obstacle specific?You can describe the situation without a vague label such as “be more productive”.
Do people recognise it?You have seen relevant questions or can explain why the task arises; anecdotes remain anecdotes.
Can you help responsibly?You can demonstrate, explain or research the answer, including its limits.
Is there room for distinct answers?You can name different decisions a person faces, rather than rephrasing one tip.
Can you sustain the work?The subject fits your interest and capacity beyond an initial burst.

Do not turn these answers into a scientific score. Use them to find weak assumptions.

A problem with many visible questions may still be a poor choice if you cannot answer it accurately. A less discussed problem may be worth trying if it matters to a group you can serve.

Run a small editorial trial

Outline a few standalone answers from different angles: a first decision, a common mistake, and a worked example. Check that each answers a real question and that its title makes sense to a stranger. Publish in a format you can sustain.

Search suggestions and apparent content gaps can be useful prompts, not proof that your audience wants your treatment of a topic. A useful one-off answer is still useful; it simply does not establish continuing interest.

If the trial attracts questions from the intended people, develop the next related decision. If it draws a different audience, decide whether that audience fits the work you want to make.

If it receives little response, check the clarity and reach of the pieces before declaring the problem irrelevant. Record what you observed and what remains a guess.

The chosen problem should make your next editorial decision easier. Revise it when better evidence appears.

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