Parallel Customer Experiments.

Hey Adam, you had mentioned blogging on my question about how to decide whether a customer segment was in my 'core area' or too far afield. You wanted some accountability on this, is that blogpost out there?I'm asking because I'm challenged with this again...apart form the challenge, I am confident I could bring in revenue to my business by writing blogposts and engaging in other content marketing (e.g. webinars and podcasts) but I'm concerned the time and energy required will detract form my core mission of helping cause based businesses.Curious to hear your and anyone's general thoughts on how to process through this.

It all depends on your long term goal. And your current hypotheses. And your constraints (which may determine your short term goal).

When the question is about two sided markets, there is ALWAYS a better way in. With neighborrow, while many advised us that supply had some inherent value, really the site was worthless without demand (and demand is not created by supply, it is filled by supply). With job sites, real estate sites, etc there is always a smarter place to find early adoptors. You start with the side of the market that has the bigger problem.

Your situation is a bit different. Some people will tell you that extreme focus on the real problem you want to solve is the only way to succeed. Other times, it is evident that consulting on the side, or in your case, solving a problem for a customer that is tangential to the real problem you want to solve, will increase your runway. If that means giving you more time to solve the real problem, more connections in the space, and more general experience - BY ALL MEANS GO FOR IT.

Just be intellectually honest with yourself and even if you test two things at once, keep your hypotheses separate and your experiments separate.

Parallel customer segments vs a means to an end.

I believe that focusing on customer B will increase the chances of solving a problem for customer A within 9 months because it will generate the 25k needed to do x. 

At least then you can see if these "side assumptions" are true. If you end up being wrong about the customer you are less interested in serving anyway, that's great data. If you are right, maybe you just figured out an entire business that you can work on and sell to someone and still solve PROBLEM A for CUSTOMER A. 

Make sense?