🗞 What's New: Crafting your buyer persona

Who is your ideal buyer?

• A relevant buyer persona is a necessary foundation for cost-effective marketing, as it will help you focus your efforts. Follow along below as we craft "Lars," using data to determine where he hangs out IRL and offline, what his interests are, and what he does for a living.
• Struggling to set boundaries and increase productivity while working from anywhere? These tips can help! Hint: Take your meetings standing up.
• Founder Muhammad Taimoor built 6 profitable products in 6 months, and sold 5 of them. Here's how he builds and sells quickly, and his top tips on categorizing and executing ideas.

Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

👥 Crafting Your Buyer Persona

by Johan Ocklind

A relevant buyer persona is a necessary foundation for cost-effective, smart marketing, and will help you focus your efforts. It describes your ideal customer to help you target the right people, in the right place, with the right message.

Without it, you will be shooting in the dark, and you are much less likely to succeed with your awesome startup. Here's how to craft one!

What exactly is a buyer persona?

A buyer persona is a detailed description of your ideal customer. It includes information like age, gender, occupation, interests, and more. It's usually defined in a company's brand book.

A buyer persona makes you focus on who your customer actually is. You should adjust your buyer persona along the way, but you have to have a starting point. As the old marketing quote goes, "Catering to everyone means catering to no one."

How does a buyer persona help?

A buyer persona helps you with:

• Choosing the right type of marketing material to create: Videos? Articles? GIFs? Infographics? Podcasts? Images?
• Choosing the right message: Should you speak to people's feelings? If so, what should you push? Or, should you be be more objective when talking about your unique selling points? What points should you choose?
• Choosing channels to market in, like Reddit, Facebook, Slack, etc.
• Deciding what your website and product should look like.

A buyer persona helps you to convert more people. If you don't have one, you are likely to spend countless hours marketing in the wrong channels, pushing non-converting messages.

What does a buyer persona look like?

Here's the real buyer persona for an online coffee startup that I founded:

• Name: Lars.
• Age: 32.
• Gender: Male.
• Address: Kungsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Income: Upper range.
• Occupation: IT-related consultant.
• Education level: Bachelor's.
• Married? No, but in a relationship.
• Children? No.
• Interests: Food, investing, live events, traveling.
• What we can help with: Make his home environment more pleasant by delivering great coffee with a good feeling attached to it.
• Specific information: Has a coffee brewing machine, but not a coffee bean grinder.

Here's where Lars spends his time online:

• Google: Searching for nicer furniture, new towels, wines, work-related peripherals, etc.
• Instagram: To get inspired, entertained, and, to some extent, foster social interaction.
• YouTube: To learn about improving upon his interests and quality of life.
• Facebook Messenger and Facebook Groups: To discuss his interests with friends, and arrange trips and meetups.
• Forums, like Reddit: Take part in discussions and research.

How do I get started?

You can use the above template. Remember to back the attributes with data when possible. Here are a few examples from the buyer persona above:

• Name: Lars. This is one of the most common names for 32 year old males living in Kungsholmen, according to official statistics.
• Age: 32. We sell a premium product, so we need an audience with a good income. They also have to be open to subscribing to things, and they need to spend a lot of time online.
• Income: Upper range. Since the coffee subscription is considered premium, we want to target higher income earners.
• Occupation: An IT-related consultant is a common occupation for a high income earner in Stockholm, Sweden.
• Interests: Foodie, investing, live events, traveling. This data comes from Think With Google.

For most of the channels mentioned above, we can find (free) data on the age distribution of each platform. TikTok, for example, is less likely to host Lars. He prefers Instagram!

Takeaways

A buyer persona helps you figure out where to spend your marketing resources, helping you understand what content and ads to create. It'll also help you design your product's customer touchpoints, such as emails, notifications, and more.

If you want to know precisely who your buyer persona should be, start by setting up a brand strategy. This will help you immensely when it comes to crafting a spot-on buyer persona.

What are the details of your buyer persona? Share in the comments below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko

🧘‍♀️ Twitter is relaxing its policy for cause-based ads in the US.

📈 Expect an increase in brand safety concerns.

👀 Top SEO trends for 2023.

🏛 More social media regulation is coming, US lawmakers say.

🤩 YouTube's predictions on what will go viral this year.

Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.

📂 Tips to Boost Your WFA Productivity

by Vedran Rasic

I've worked remotely for six years. Here are 20 tips I've picked up for setting healthy work-life boundaries in 2023!

Disclaimer: Some of these tips won't be feasible for everyone, but hopefully you can find something useful for you!

The tips

1. Aim to find something that you enjoy doing most of the time. This is not a cliché. It is doable.
2. Get fiber internet, a 4K camera, a microphone, and lights. It will pay dividends.
3. Separate your living environment from your working environment. When I shut the door of my basement, that's it.
4. I have my "office" shoes, and I'm primed to think that work starts when I am in them. It's a neat way to divide my routines.
5. Every once in a while, go to a coffee shop, or work with somebody that you like for a day. Or, go to into a co-working office, if possible.
6. Have focused time. Block off some time on your calendar without notifications, just deep work. Google Calendar now even offers it under "Focused Time."
7. Turn off sounds, notifications, and other distractions.
8. Put your phone out of sight and out of reach when you're on your computer.
9. If you work on a computer, get a standing desk. Get that standing mat, too.
10. Figure out what calms you. Example: Sometimes, I take a shower in the middle of the day. On other days, I take a nap or go jogging.
11. It's okay not to be productive. Take some time away from the screen. Do it often.
12. Set up times in your calendar for meals, exercise, and hobbies.
13. Try to have at least one day without meetings. Fridays are good days for that.
14. Jam as many meetings together as possible. Keep meetings from being spread out too much. It will kill your productivity.
15. Take your meetings standing up. You'll finish them more quickly.
16. Try not to bring any office gear into your bedroom.
17. Consider having two different computers: One for work. One for fun.
18. Have an object that helps you to decompress. I have an electric guitar and an amp.
19. Print out some useful reminders. I have a picture that says "Be kind to your mind."
20. If you can't get away from the virtual office, do something where you have to apply your undivided attention. For example, I take long drive somewhere. Just do something where you can't have the internet!

Keep playing and discovering! You'll find the optimal balance between your personal life and your output.

What top work from anywhere tips have you picked up? Share below!

Discuss this story.

🌐 Best Around the Web: Posts Submitted to Indie Hackers This Week

👵 Lifetime deals, yes or no? Posted by Muneeb Awan.

🛠 Which no-code tool to use. Posted by Seth Kramer.

💡 49 micro-SaaS ideas for 2023. Posted by Uğur Kilci.

👩‍🏫 What do you want to learn about community building? Posted by Rosie Sherry.

🙅 Marketing for solo founders who hate marketing. Posted by Lisa.

💭 What ChatGPT does not solve. Posted by Maaike.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

🕰 Muhammad Taimoor Talks Launching and Selling Quickly

by James Fleischmann

Founder Muhammad Taimoor recently built six profitable products in six months, and sold five of them. Not a bad haul! Indie Hackers caught up with him to chat about his interesting approach to building.

Here's what he had to say!

On building and selling quickly

I created six side projects in six months while going to university, and sold five of them. All of the projects were making $50-$170 MRR before I sold them, and the sales brought in about $20K.

People think that focusing on one idea for years is the right way to do it, and maybe it is. But micro-projects can work if you want them to!

Building and selling quickly is a big advantage. You can learn from the market and customers, get feedback, validate your idea, and make money quickly. You get less cash than if you would have kept building it, but it's still a good amount of fuel to keep your other products running.

Plus, building projects and trying different niches is fun. It helps me explore and learn how things work. I love it, and I plan to keep running this model.

A model for building and selling

I have been building side projects since I was 12. I sleep five hours maximum. I spend my days at university, then build things afterward. I do this by categorizing my ideas and plans. This helps me prioritize and save time.

Here's how I categorize my ideas:

• Low-tier: Very niche problems, specific audience, and a market gap.
• Mid-tier: Pretty niche, but a big problem that is easily profitable for the next five years.
• High-tier: Large market, huge problem, easily profitable for the next five years, and has at least 5-8 different use cases for different audiences.

Once I have my ideas categorized, I just prioritize them and execute. These tiers also determine how I build. I believe in quick launches to validate fast. If things go right, you start improving things. If not, move on. So, I try to ideate, build, and launch products within one month, maximum:

• Low-tier: One day to one week.
• Mid-tier: One to two weeks.
• High-tier: One month maximum.

I build low-tier projects by myself from scratch. On mid-tier projects, I work side-by-side with freelance contractors. And, for high-tier projects, I work with agencies. Once I start marketing a project, the team starts working on the next projects.

It seems hectic, but if you have a plan, and have sorted out your workflow, you can validate quickly.

On selling projects

I sold my businesses on MicroAcquire. As with everything else, I sell according to my model:

• Low-tier: The sole purpose of these is to fuel my high-tier startups.
• Mid-tier: Some projects are listed for sale right away, while others are taken to a specific MRR before selling.
• High-tier: These are not for sale. I bootstrap them with the goal of growing the MRR.

My low- and mid-tier projects give me fuel to run, while I build gems that can be bootstrapped long-term.

On entering established markets

Get involved in communities. Find bad reviews of products. Search startup directories to find out what's launching. Go to ad libraries and see what's selling.

Is it wrong to play in an established market? I think not. Just try to add value...don't copy.

Even if you think your product is unique, there will be some features that are already on the market. That means those features are validated!

So, look at your competition and note a few big fish. Go through their features, user flow, etc., and see what value you can add.

A tiered approach to marketing

My community is the first group of beta testers and paid users. They help me refine my product, fix the bugs, and validate it. This brings me to $50-$200 MRR. Then, I sell low-tier products.

For mid- and high-tier products, I keep going and launch to the world via Product Hunt, Indie Hackers, Hacker News, etc. This brings in organic users, and usually gets me to $200-$2K MRR.

Once there, I'm able to do proper marketing, including paid ads and cold emails. I do this with high-tier products, and some mid-tier.

Parting advice

These three things will give you that first push you need:

1. Community building: Try to follow people in your space, from the newbie level to the guru level, on whatever social network you prefer. This will help you get constant updates on the market. You'll know what's happening, how much people are earning, what the new trends are, etc.
2. Narrow research efforts: Try to narrow down your research. Focus on one website or one keyword. That will help you find one great idea to move forward with.
3. Launch ASAP: Launch as soon as possible so you have a competitive edge, and room to penetrate the market.

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?

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Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Johan Ocklind, Darko, Vedran Rasic, and James Fleischmann for contributing posts. —Channing