The default product strategy is to build for “the market” — a large, fuzzy group of potential users. This approach produces products that are fine for everyone and loved by no one. The alternative is radically different: find one person and build something they can’t live without.
The One-User Philosophy
This isn’t about ignoring the market. It’s about finding your market through depth rather than breadth. When you deeply solve a problem for one person, you discover the universal truths that make the solution work for thousands.
Products That Started This Way
- Facebook — Built for Harvard students first. One campus.
- Stripe — Built for the founders’ own side projects first.
- Superhuman — Built for the founders’ email workflow.
- Notion — Built for the founding team’s internal needs.
- Figma — Built for designers on the founding team.
Each of these started by solving an acute problem for a tiny audience, then expanded.
How to Find Your One User
The best candidate is often yourself. If you feel the pain acutely, you have the fastest feedback loop possible. If not, find someone who does:
- Look for people complaining about a specific workflow on Twitter, Reddit, or HN
- Offer to build them a solution for free
- Iterate daily based on their feedback
- Stop when they volunteer to pay
- Find five more people with the same problem
The Scaling Moment
You know you’re ready to scale when your one user recommends you unprompted. That’s when you have product-market fit for a niche — and a foundation to expand from.