Step 5: Map who is currently buying
Phase 1: Preliminary Research · Step 5 of 13
Before you talk to a single customer you need to understand who the market currently serves. This prevents you from asking questions that have already been answered publicly.
Article
Customer research does not start with interviews. It starts with understanding what is already known. Every market generates enormous amounts of public data about who is buying, what they pay, how satisfied they are, and what they wish were different. Ignoring this data and going straight to interviews means you will waste your limited interview time asking questions that have already been answered.
The customer landscape has multiple layers. Demographics and firmographics tell you who the buyers are in measurable terms: their age, income, company size, industry, and role. Psychographics tell you why they buy: their values, priorities, and decision-making patterns. Behavioral data tells you how they buy: their research process, purchase triggers, and switching patterns.
Public review platforms are an underused gold mine. Sites like G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and app store review sections contain thousands of unfiltered customer opinions. These reviews tell you what customers value, what frustrates them, and what language they use to describe their problems. That language is critical. It is the vocabulary you will use in your interview guide and eventually in your positioning.
Satisfaction data is particularly valuable because it reveals concentration. Overall satisfaction in a market might be moderate, but dissatisfaction is rarely evenly distributed. It clusters around specific features, specific use cases, or specific customer segments. Those clusters are where opportunity lives.
Your output is a customer landscape summary that gives you enough context to have an informed conversation with any potential customer. You should be able to describe their world before they describe it to you. That preparation is what separates useful interviews from useless ones.
Key Takeaways
- Why: Knowing who is buying today reveals who you might serve differently tomorrow.
- What: Use AI to synthesize existing data on customer demographics, behaviors, and satisfaction.
- Output: A customer landscape summary covering who buys, what they pay, and how satisfied they are.
AI Prompt
Act as a customer research analyst. Based on this market: [paste your step 2 output here].
Synthesize existing public data on the customer landscape. Include:
- Demographic and firmographic profile of current buyers in this space
- Psychographic characteristics and values of typical buyers
- How customers currently solve this problem and what they pay for those solutions
- Overall satisfaction levels with existing solutions and where dissatisfaction is concentrated
- How the customer population is changing over the next three to five years
- The top three sources of customer sentiment data for this market such as review platforms, forums, and communities
Cite all sources. Flag any findings that require qualitative validation.