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Hello rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
Neil writes a weekly newsletter about money for couples who just moved in together.
He started it after watching friends fight about money in their first shared year.
To him, money fights are rarely about money — they're about never talking.
His readers want the same — a calm way to handle money as a team.
⛳️ Problem:
Neil tries to write for everyone with a bank account.
So his issues swing from student debt to retirement to crypto to budgeting.
Each one lands flat. No issue feels like it's truly for anyone.
A year in, growth is dead and nobody forwards a single email.
His problem: how to matter to someone instead of no one.
🔥 The recipe
➡️ The smallest viable audience
Seth Godin wrote This Is Marketing and a hugely popular daily blog.
He argues trying to reach everyone is how you reach no one.
Pick the smallest group you could possibly serve.
Delight them so completely that they tell the next person.
Godin's argument: don't ask "how do I reach more people?"
Ask "who, exactly, is this for?" — then serve only them.
Godin points to one of New York's best restaurants — just 14 seats.
It doesn't chase everyone.
It delights a tiny, devoted room so well they keep coming back.
🚗 The steps
🎯 Step 1 — Name the smallest group you'd be proud to serve.
Not "everyone with money." One specific person in one specific moment.
Narrow until it almost feels too small.
Neil picks one reader.
Couples in their first year living together, splitting bills for the first time.
That's it. Not students, not retirees.
💛 Step 2 — Delight that group completely.
Write only what that exact person needs, in their exact words.
Solve their real problem better than anyone bothers to.
Neil rewrites his next issue for that couple.
How to run a 20-minute money date without a fight.
Nothing about crypto or retirement.
📣 Step 3 — Make it worth talking about.
Serve them so well that telling a friend feels natural.
The smallest audience grows itself by word of mouth.
Neil ends each issue with one line couples can forward.
"Send this to the friend who just moved in with their partner."
Twelve do it the first week.
The prompt below will narrow your audience to the smallest group you can truly delight.
You just tell it who you've been trying to reach.
🧸 The smallest viable audience, delighted = word of mouth that grows itself.
🏄♀️ The prompt
Save this prompt as a Skill or add to Project in your favorite AI tool — build once, use often.
Update your input values in the prompt or just run as is, your AI sidekick will use the example values and will give output.
CONTEXT:
- (use what's available, fall back to the inline values)
- If my Voice Profile exists, write in that voice. Otherwise, write in a clear, warm, no-jargon voice — first-person, plain words, no startup-speak.
- If my ICP / Audience doc exists, target that reader. Otherwise, use the audience below.
Inputs:
Who I've been trying to write for (be honest — is it secretly "everyone"?):
{e.g. anyone who wants to be better with money — students, couples, retirees, side-hustlers, all of them}
The topics my issues swing between (the scattered range that's making each one land flat):
{e.g. student debt one week, crypto the next, retirement after that, then basic budgeting}
The one reader I most light up to help (a specific person in a specific moment of their life):
{e.g. couples in their first year living together, splitting bills and quietly tense about money}
For Audience: {e.g. new live-in couples who want to handle money as a team without the fights}
For Outcome: {e.g. a one-line definition of my smallest viable audience plus how to serve and grow them}
Outputs:
1. My smallest viable audience — one sentence naming the specific person, in their specific moment. Narrow enough that it almost feels too small.
2. The delight list — 3-5 things this exact person urgently needs that I can write better than anyone, in their words.
3. The topics to drop — the scattered subjects I should stop covering because they dilute my appeal to the few.
4. The word-of-mouth line — one shareable sentence I can add to each issue that makes a reader forward it to the exact next person.
Then explain in 2 sentences why serving this tiny group will grow me faster than writing for everyone.
One reader you'd be proud to serve perfectly.
One issue written for them and no one else.
One word-of-mouth engine you didn't have to buy.
That's it, my fellow outliers!
Yours 'making entrepreneurship fun again with your AI sidekick and AI coach' Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️