Jack Haldrup founded Dr. Squatch on his own skin condition: psoriasis. Soap from the drugstore dried his skin out. He knew other men suffered from the same issue, but saw no brands marketing to them. He built soap for a single person: A guy in his twenties or thirties tired of chemical-filled body washes who wouldn’t stand for the lavender-scented “natural” brands already on store shelves. He defined his entire customer base through this one sentence.
By 2020 revenue had hit $100 million, up from $5 million just a few years earlier. In 2025, Unilever bought Dr. Squatch for $1.5 billion. The product was great. More important, Haldrup knew exactly who he was selling to before he placed his first ad, signed his first distribution deal, or bought his first Super Bowl ad.
“The” Everyone Trap
There’s logic to going broad. More people = more buyers, right? Narrow feels like losing customers.
CB Insights looked at post-mortems from hundreds of failed startups and found that the single biggest cause of failure was poor product-market fit, meaning founders solved the wrong problem, listed in 43% of failures. Running out of cash happened more frequently but was directly correlated: CB Insights cites that as a symptom of the actual cause — creating something that failed to resonate with a specific buyer who had a specific problem.
Businesses accidentally spend $37 billion/year on ads no target customer sees. Of marketers surveyed, 42% cited reaching the wrong audience as their biggest costly error, edging out having bad creative or poor media choices. What you spend after you have the wrong customer definition doesn’t matter.
Finding Customers Who Actually Want What You’re Selling
“Young adults ages 18-35 who own smartphones” is not a customer definition. Good luck finding that person. That descriptor encompasses close to a billion people and tells you nothing about where they browse, what they care about, or why they’d pick you over anyone else who tries to reach them on those platforms.
You know you’ve found a customer definition when you can act on it. Mark Zuckerberg started TheFacebook.com in February 2004 targeting one specific customer: Current Harvard students with an .edu email address wanting to connect with their classmates. Within weeks he’d signed up half the school. Facebook went campus by campus, company by company. By June over 250,000 students across 34 colleges used it. Starting small with one narrowly defined target created network effects that allowed Facebook to dominate every category it touched going forward.
Ads That Exclude Buyers Convert Better
A recent 20study published by FIU Business in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that exclusionary ads convert better than traditional positive ads. Researchers tested ads across eight categories and found告诉 people your product wasn’t made for them drove significantly more purchases among the target audience than straightforward persuasive ads.
“If you don’t like dark roast coffees, this coffee is NOT for you.” outsold “This coffee is for you!” among customers who drink dark roast. Targeted customers saw products positioned as not for everyone as more niche, specializing the product for the specific people who fit into that category. Saying everyone can’t use your product is targeting customers.
Dr. Squatch spoke only to its definition. “You’re not a dish. You’re a man.” Preach if you are one. Everyone else wasn’t the company’s customer. That decision turned into $100 million in revenue.
How To Write Your Customer Definition
Begin with the problem. Identify the person whose pain is bad enough they tried to solve it but failed. Jack Haldurp didn’t set out to win market share from Dove. He solved his problem and believed others like him were struggling to do the same.
Get specific until you could reach ten of these people tomorrow. “Male shampoo users who value hair health” is too broad. How about: Men in their late twenties and early thirties who are frustrated trim milks aren’t hydrating enough and feel overlooked by brands that do advertise to men.
Then go find them. Ask them questions. Spend zero money. Learn what they’ve tried, why it didn’t work, and what they’d spend money on if something did. Research puts wasted marketing budgets for small businesses at around 60%. Most of that is because entrepreneurs spend before asking the question.
