How Qpidcon is Validating Its Target Audience and Achieving Product-Market Fit
A few weeks ago, we shared the journey behind developing the first version of Qpidcon. This process began with ideation, progressed through the discovery and research phases—including user interviews with potential customers—and culminated in designing and launching a functional prototype.
In this post, I want to delve deeper into a crucial aspect of product development: identifying and validating your target user segment. This step is foundational for aligning product decisions with real user needs. At Qpidcon, this has been a priority, and I want to share how we’re approaching it and the lessons we’re learning along the way.
The Importance of User Segmentation
In product management, understanding your audience is as important as understanding the problem your product aims to solve. I highly recommend a recent episode of Lenny's podcast featuring Michael Margolis, where they discuss the importance of defining your niche. A key takeaway is that attempting to solve everyone’s problems from the outset is a recipe for failure. Instead, focus on solving a specific problem for a well-defined group of users before scaling.
Launching and Driving Awareness
Once we launched the first version of Qpidcon—currently a web app—our focus shifted to creating awareness and engaging with users. As part of our go-to-market strategy, we established Qpidcon’s presence on Instagram and TikTok, platforms aligned with our target audience’s digital habits. Internally, we crafted a marketing and communication plan that prioritized cost efficiency. Our goal was not to simply attract a large number of users but to validate our hypothesis about who our core users are and their engagement levels with the platform.
Social network posts
Balancing Product-Market Fit and Iteration
From a product management perspective, we deliberately chose not to make large upfront investments in marketing. Scaling prematurely, without achieving some level of product-market fit, risks wasting resources and alienating potential users. However, we also recognize that product-market fit is not a binary milestone. Instead, we look for early indicators of engagement—metrics like user retention, time spent on the platform, and conversion rates—that suggest we are addressing a real pain point for our target audience.
To build these insights, we’ve planned our social media content calendar 4–6 months ahead, ensuring a consistent presence on both Instagram and TikTok. Every week and month, we analyze performance data to identify which types of posts are driving the most registrations and engagement. These insights guide us in refining our messaging and outreach strategies.
Maintaining a Feedback Loop
Engagement data is just one piece of the puzzle. We believe the best products evolve through continuous dialogue with users. To this end, we stay in close contact with our registered users through surveys and emails. These channels allow us to:
Gather feedback to iterate on and improve the product experience.
Validate (or challenge) our assumptions about our target audience.
For example, understanding what features users value most or what pain points they experience when using Qpidcon helps us prioritize our product roadmap. At the same time, confirming that our initial target—single men and women aged 30 to 50 who are comfortable with social apps and interested in meeting people online—matches the actual user base reinforces our focus.
The Product Manager's Role in Defining and Engaging Users
As a product manager, your job is not just to build solutions but to ensure you are solving the right problem for the right users. This involves striking a balance between moving fast to gather insights and being deliberate in your decisions to avoid costly missteps. At Qpidcon, we approach this by continuously testing, learning, and iterating—not just on the product itself but also on our understanding of the market and our users.
By focusing on these principles—clear segmentation, thoughtful engagement, and iterative learning—we are confident that Qpidcon will not only meet user expectations but also position itself for sustainable growth.