How to develop your startup’s market

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It’s hard to build a product, but it’s harder still to get people to use it.

At first, it seems like an MVP is the finish line – something to release, raise money around, and scale. But in reality, an MVP is just a hypothesis. A guess. And the moment you launch it, the real work begins.

The next phase isn’t about “growth” in the way most people imagine it. It’s about answering a far more fundamental question: Did you build something people actually want?

If you get that right, everything else becomes easier. If you get that wrong, you’ll end up doing what most failed startups do: pushing a product no one really wants. This is what you need to know.

1. Does your startup have a market yet?

Most founders assume that once they have an MVP, the next step is expanding their market. But this assumes you already have one.

In reality, many startups are still in the "figuring out if anyone cares" phase.

When you have a real market, you can feel it. Users rely on the product. They complain when things break. They email asking for features before you even think of them.

A weak market, on the other hand, feels like silence. You push marketing, but no one bites. You tweak messaging, but nothing changes.

So how do you know where you stand?

Signs you have a market

  • Some users rely on it. Not just with casual interest, but with a real dependence.
  • People use it repeatedly. If signups vanish after one use, that’s curiosity. But if users keep coming back, you have traction.
  • You have at least 10 people who would pay for it today. They don’t have to be paying yet, but if you asked, they’d say yes.

Signs you don’t have a market

  • People sign up but don’t return. This means they were interested enough to try it, but not enough to stick around.
  • No one is talking about it. If your users aren’t telling friends or colleagues, your product isn’t solving a strong enough problem.
  • Everyone is lukewarm. If feedback is mostly “It’s cool, but…” or “I’d use it if it had X feature,” you don’t have a market yet, you just have a product.

Most early-stage founders make the same mistake here: they assume scale will fix the problem. But if users aren’t pulling the product into their lives when it’s small, they won’t suddenly start when it’s big.

The solution isn’t to expand, it’s to find and focus on the users who truly care. Because once you have a small group of people who need your product, you have something to build on. Without that, all the marketing in the world won’t save you.

2. How to find your startup’s core users

The biggest mistake early-stage startups make is trying to sell to everyone.

At first, your market will always be narrow but deep. The mistake is thinking you need to broaden it. You don’t. You need to go deeper.

Your goal isn’t to convince a broad audience, it’s to find the people who already need what you’ve built so badly that they’ll use it, even if it’s rough around the edges.

Then, your job is to find them, focus on them, and ignore everyone else, at least for now. To find your core users, look at your existing users and ask:

  • Who uses it the most? Are there people logging in every day, using it obsessively? And what are they doing when they do?
  • Who gets the most value? Are there specific types of users who rave about it? Who is giving you the most positive feedback?
  • Who would be genuinely upset if it disappeared? Not just slightly annoyed, you want the people who would be visibly in pain.

These are your real early adopters. Once you find them, don’t spread yourself thin trying to get new users elsewhere, double down on making your product even better for them.

The early users who love your product will teach you what to build next. They’ll pull you forward, not the other way around. Every successful startup starts this way.

  • Superhuman didn’t target everyone using email, they focused only on productivity-obsessed power users.
  • Robinhood didn’t aim at all investors, they found young, tech-savvy traders who wanted to buy stocks easily.

Most failed startups never find these people. They waste time chasing more users instead of better ones.

If you’re stuck, stop thinking about how to grow and start thinking about who needs this so badly that they’re already using it despite its flaws.

Because if you can find and narrow in on them, you don’t have to guess what to do next, they’ll tell you.

3. How to extend your startup’s market

At some point, you’ll want to expand beyond your first users. The danger is expanding too early or in the wrong direction.

Many startups make the mistake of trying to market to everyone too soon. The result is a diluted product, confused messaging, and something that appeals to no one.

The right way to expand is in layers, one step at a time. Instead of asking, “How do we reach everyone?” ask, “Who else is just like our best users?”

Your next market should feel adjacent, not like a leap.

  • If your first users are small e-commerce brands, don’t jump to Fortune 500 companies. Target mid-sized e-commerce brands first.
  • If your first users are startup founders, don’t pivot to government clients overnight. Expand to bigger startups and scaleups first.

This is how great companies grow, and we see that in real life.

  • Slack started with game developers, then moved to software teams, then all knowledge workers.
  • Facebook began with Harvard students, then expanded to other universities, then the world.

Expansion should feel natural. Each new market should be an obvious step from where you already have traction.

Once you’ve extended your reach, you should then test your new market. To do this, you need to run small, fast experiments to see if demand actually exists in this new market. Here’s a few ways to do it:

  • Create landing pages with targeted messaging to gauge interest before investing in full-scale marketing. Use A/B testing to compare how different audience segments respond.
  • Run highly targeted ads with small budgets to see which groups engage the most before scaling campaigns. Look at click-through rates, signups, and conversion rates to measure demand.
  • Pilot with a limited user group before rolling it out further. Gather feedback, and measure adoption rates to check that the market is real.

If the expansion feels like a struggle, it’s usually a sign that the new market doesn’t truly need what you’ve built. But if you get the sequence right, growth starts to take care of itself.

4. How to know if you should pivot or push your startup market

Every founder eventually faces a critical question: should we keep pushing forward, or is it time to change direction?

Pivoting too soon can mean abandoning something with real potential, while staying in a stagnant market for too long can waste valuable time and resources.

The worst scenario is getting stuck in zombie mode – where there are some users but not enough to drive real growth, some revenue but not enough to scale.

If this happens, there are two options:

  • improve the product to make it a must-have
  • shift to a market where customers truly need what you’ve built.

The challenge here is knowing whether your startup needs refinement or a fundamental shift. Here’s some signs to help you tell.

a) When to push harder

If a small but dedicated group of users relies on your product, even if the market seems small, it’s often a sign to push harder.

Users who keep coming back, recommend the product to others, and engage deeply indicate there’s something worth building on.

Similarly, if competitors are succeeding in similar markets, or organic inbound interest and search volume are rising, this helps prove demand exists.

In these cases, the issue may not be the market itself but rather the messaging, pricing, or positioning. So focus on strengthening your startup. Refine the product, raise prices to test value perception, or find more customers who resemble your most engaged users.

Many successful companies started in what seemed like niche markets before uncovering massive adjacent opportunities.

b) When to pivot

On the other hand, if no one seems to care about what you’ve built – users sign up but don’t return, no one talks about it, and you find yourself constantly trying to convince people to use it – then a pivot might be necessary.

If a product doesn’t generate enthusiasm, no amount of hard selling will fix it. So the best way to determine what to do next is to observe real user behaviour.

Pivots should never come from internal brainstorming alone. They should come from listening to users. Customers will tell you what’s working, what’s missing, and what they would actually pay for.

Are customers engaging with one feature more than others? Are they asking for something slightly different? Is an unexpected type of customer showing interest?

These signals can reveal whether a pivot should be a small shift or a complete change in direction.

Final thoughts

Startups that succeed don’t force their way into a market, the market pulls them in.

If growth feels like a struggle, the problem isn’t effort. It’s a sign that either the product isn’t good enough yet, or the market isn’t the right one.

The best signal that you’re on the right track is when customers keep coming back, telling friends, and demanding more.

If that’s happening, double down. Expand carefully, one layer at a time, while testing as you go. If it’s not, stop and rethink. Find the users who truly need your product, then test again.

If you get this part right, everything else will start to take care of itself.