Digital product market research: find evidence before you build.

Start with a situation, not a demographic

“Women 25–45” or “small business owners” rarely gives you enough information to design a useful offer. Start with a person in a recognizable situation: what they are trying to accomplish, what blocks them, and what happens if nothing changes.

Look for behavior, not only opinions

Useful signals include money already being spent, tools already being used, repeated workarounds, active communities, comparison searches, requests for recommendations, hiring, complaints, and attempts to solve the problem manually.

Map the alternatives

Every product competes with something: another product, a spreadsheet, a service provider, a free tutorial, internal effort, or doing nothing. Understanding the current alternative exposes switching friction and what the offer must improve.

Capture buyer language

Record the words buyers use to describe the problem, desired outcome, objections, and constraints. Do not copy isolated quotes out of context; look for recurring language patterns you can verify across multiple sources.

Define what evidence you still need

End research with explicit unknowns. Which assumption would make you stop or substantially change the idea if it proved false? That assumption should become a validation test, not another week of passive research.