I've heard Freud based his studies of the human psyche almost entirely upon the characters in Shakespeare's plays. The foundation of modern psychology based on fictictious characters! These are make believe, enhanced images of what people might be like.

Modern politics does a very similar thing with it's classifications like: soccer moms, values voters, … Do these groups represent reality? Not at all.

It's just a lazy way of classifying people so you don't have to think too hard. And one thing political pundits (and Freud, apparently) want to avoid is thinking.

Have you classified your target market into a faceless, ownerless group? Then you're making a huge mistake and are leaving money on the table. Here's 3 ways to design a product with pizzaz and will generate evangelicals.

1. Design the product for yourself. This is the simplist and easiest way of developing products. Find out what you want to accomplish, figure out how to do it and then offer it to others. If you are designing a product for yourself, it's much easier to take an iterative approach to development. Get the product pretty close, test it, refine it until you are satisfied. The problem with this approach is if you do it without one of the other ways, you may end up with a product the market doesn't want.
2. Pick a random group. Conduct a survey and get input from a variety of people about what they want. I use Willmaster to conduct my surveys. While this might get you into the ballpark of the type of product you should develop, it won't get you to the heart of designing a product that will create evangelicals. You'll end up with a gooey mess of a product if you try to incorporate everyone's ideas into a product. Which leads us to…
3. Pick someone you know and you know is having difficulty with something you are able to solve. Put a name to your customer. For example I might design a product for Terry Dean. I might ask Terry exactly what he wants the product to do and how it would work. I get the details from that person and then build a product that solves their problems. If this specific person is having a problem, then it's just more likely others will be having the same problem.

I actually prefer a combination of all 3. I want any product I product to be something I would use myself, so I need to meet my own requirements. Next, I check out what a group of others might want from a product in a broad category area. If they're having some of the same problems I'm having, it tells me others might be interested in a product addressing those problems. Next, I choose a single person from the group and work with them on the product. When they and I are satisfied with the product… it's time to launch it!

If you're looking at outsourcing some software development work, a great resource to help you:

Manage Contractors & OutSource Software Development

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