Find Your One Person

Ask a creator who their audience is and you usually hear “everyone who’s into what I make”.

That circle is huge. And it’s the reason they can’t decide what to make next.

Picture three people inside a big circle called Travel: a first-timer, a family with small kids, and a retired couple. They’re all going to Japan, and they need three completely different guides.

The first-timer needs to know where to stay and how not to get lost. The family needs to know what’s doable with a pushchair. The retired couple needs to know how many steps there are.

Aim at everyone and nobody opens your thing thinking “this was written for me”. Worse, every idea fits “everyone”, so every idea feels equally good. You end up with a list of vague ideas and no way to choose.

You’re not deciding who’s allowed to watch. Anyone can watch. You’re deciding who you make things for first.

Most people start brainstorming in a giant category: health, money, travel, productivity. Inside each one are lots of different people, with different problems, chasing different goals. Try to find “the problem” in there and you’ll come up empty.

So narrow it in three levels:

1. Mega-category. The big one. Travel.
2. Niche. One part of it. Japan.
3. Niche within the niche. One kind of person inside that. Tokyo for first-time solo travellers.

To get from niche to niche within the niche, narrow it by one or two of these:

• Who they are. Busy parents, students, retirees.
• How experienced they are. Their first go, or their fifth.
• Where they live. A city or a country.
• Which platform they’re on. TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube.
• Their budget. Shoestring or splurge.
• How they want it delivered. A download, a call, a course.

Pick a niche within the niche you’ve lived yourself if you can. You’ve had their problems, and you’ve probably solved a few of them already.

Then turn the category into a human. Categories don’t buy things, people do. Give them a name (it’s much easier to talk to Sam than to “my audience”) and answer four questions as if they were a friend:

• Who are they, in plain words?
• What are they trying to do next?
• What’s worrying them about it? The feeling, not the logistics.
• What did they last type into Google about it? Their exact words make great titles.

Here’s how you know you’ve narrowed it enough. Can you picture them and say what they’re doing next? If you can, stop. If you can’t, narrow it once more.

Don’t start this until step 1 is done. Problems for “everyone in travel” come out vague.

Write down the ten biggest problems that person has, before they’d buy anything from you. Not every problem they could ever have: the ten that matter most.

Think about the moments: before they start, while they figure it out, and when they’re standing there with it going wrong and their phone on 4%. Each moment has its own problems.

Use problems you’ve had yourself. Those are the ones you can actually solve.

Stuck at five? That’s useful. It means you need to learn more about this person. And don’t worry if it’s a guess for now. You’ll check it against your real comments and DMs next.

Now skip to the end. What does this person care about most? What do they want to achieve? What milestone are they chasing? How would life be different if each problem went away?

Write the answer next to each problem as an “I” statement, in their voice. Best of all if it’s an outcome you’ve reached yourself.

“Where do I stay?” becomes “If I knew where to stay, I’d book tonight and stop opening tabs.”

That’s not you talking. That’s them, saying it to a friend at night with the laptop open. Writing in their voice puts you in their head, and you notice what they actually care about.

Keep all ten. They become the words on your landing page and in your posts, the lines that make someone think “that’s exactly how I feel”.

Circle the problem that hurts most, or costs them the most money or time. That’s the one you lead with. People don’t pay for your stories. They pay for a problem to go away.

Your product might help with all ten. Fine. It still gets one headline. Lead with all ten and nobody can tell which one matters, so none of them lands. The other nine still get a mention: on your landing page, in your emails, in your posts.

Now write your sentence: I help ___ go from ___ to ___. Who you help, how they feel before, how they feel after.

Make the after concrete and quick. “Booked in an evening” beats “a perfect trip”. A promise they can picture is one they’ll believe.

Here’s the worked example: I help solo travellers visiting Tokyo go from worried they’ll feel isolated to meeting people from the minute they arrive.

Hit Copy the Claude prompt at the end of the worksheet and paste it into a new chat in Claude. It checks your person, writes your bios for each platform, gives you ten content ideas (one per problem), and suggests a first digital product.

Put your sentence at the top of your channel description and your bios. Then ask a few viewers: does this sound like you? “Yes” means you’re on track. “Kind of” tells you something too. It usually means a different problem should lead.

Tonight, do step 1: write down the one person you’d make something for, and what they’re trying to do next. This week, finish all four steps. Then tell me your sentence.