Should I Target One User Group or Everyone at Launch?

One of the biggest mistakes I see founders make is launching their app with this idea that they can serve everyone from day one. They'll tell me their app is perfect for teenagers and retirees, for freelancers and corporate executives, for complete beginners and power users. And I get it—nobody wants to leave money on the table, right? But here's what actually happens: they spend months building features for all these different groups, launch to a lukewarm response, and then struggle to get any meaningful traction because their message is so diluted that nobody feels like the app was made specifically for them.

I've watched this play out dozens of times across different industries. A healthcare app trying to serve both patients and doctors ends up serving neither particularly well. An e-commerce platform attempting to cater to bargain hunters and luxury shoppers simultaneously confuses both groups. The pattern is always the same—the broader you cast your net at launch, the less compelling your offering becomes to any single person.

The apps that gain real momentum are the ones that make a specific group of users feel genuinely understood from the moment they open the app.

Now, this doesn't mean you're stuck with that audience forever. Some of the most successful apps started incredibly narrow—think about how Facebook began as just a Harvard directory—and then expanded once they'd nailed the experience for their core users. But that initial focus? That's what allows you to build something people actually love rather than something everyone finds merely acceptable. The choice between targeting one user group or everyone at launch isn't really a choice at all if you want to survive those critical first months.

Why Most Apps Fail By Trying to Please Everyone

I've watched so many apps crash and burn because the founders tried to be everything to everyone right from the start. Its genuinely one of the most common mistakes I see, and honestly, it breaks my heart a bit because these teams pour months of work and thousands of pounds into building something that never finds its footing. The thing is, when you try to serve everyone, you end up serving no one particularly well—and in the app world, "good enough" for everyone means you're not special to anyone.

There was this health and fitness app I worked on where the client wanted to target professional athletes, casual gym-goers, elderly people doing rehab exercises, and pregnant women all at once. Sounds ambitious? It was a nightmare. The interface needed to be simple enough for someone who'd never used a smartphone but powerful enough for athletes tracking complex training regimes; the language needed to be motivating for fitness enthusiasts but gentle and medical for rehab users. We spent three months building it and another two trying to market it. Know what happened? The app store reviews were all over the place. Athletes said it was too basic. Elderly users found it confusing. Nobody felt like the app was made for them specifically, because... well, it wasn't.

Here's what happens when you cast too wide a net at launch:

• Your onboarding flow becomes cluttered with conditional logic trying to figure out what each user needs
• Your feature set gets bloated because you're building for multiple use cases simultaneously
• Your marketing message becomes vague and forgettable because you cant speak directly to anyone's specific pain points
• Your development costs skyrocket as you build features that only 20% of your users will ever touch
• Your support documentation becomes a maze because different users need different guidance

Compare this to a fintech app I built for freelancers. Just freelancers. Not small businesses, not enterprises, not hobbyists—freelancers who invoiced clients and needed to track irregular income. We built invoice templates specific to freelance work, tax calculations for self-employed individuals, and expense tracking for common freelancer costs like coworking spaces and software subscriptions. The app wasn't trying to compete with Xero or QuickBooks on features; it was laser-focused on solving the exact problems freelancers face. That focus made every decision easier—what features to build, how to price it, where to advertise, even what colour scheme to use. The conversion rate from download to paid user was 23%, which is honestly mental compared to the typical 2-5% most apps see.

Understanding Your Core User Group

When I built a fitness tracking app for a client a few years back, we thought we were being smart by making it appeal to "everyone who wants to get healthier." Sounds good, right? Wrong. We spent months adding features for gym enthusiasts, casual walkers, yoga practitioners, and runners. The result? An app that confused everyone because it tried to do too much. We had to strip it back and focus solely on beginner runners—and that's when downloads actually started converting into active users.

Your core user group isn't just about demographics like "women aged 25-40" or "professionals in London." That's surface-level stuff that doesn't tell you much. What you really need to understand is the behaviour patterns and specific problems your users face. I mean, a 30-year-old freelance designer and a 30-year-old investment banker might both be in your target age range, but they use apps completely differently; their daily routines, their pain points, their willingness to pay—it's all different.

What You Actually Need to Know

Here's what I dig into when defining a core user group for any project:

• What specific problem keeps them looking for a solution (not general frustrations, but the exact moment they decide they need help)
• Where they currently try to solve this problem and why its not working
• How much time or money they're already spending on failed solutions
• What would make them switch from their current method to your app
• How often they experience this problem (daily users behave very differently from monthly users)

I worked on a meal planning app where we initially thought busy parents were our core group. Turns out, the people who actually engaged were single professionals who ate out too much and wanted to save money. Same problem (meal planning) but completely different motivations and usage patterns. Once we understood that, we redesigned the onboarding to speak directly to their specific situation—showing potential savings rather than family health benefits—and our retention jumped by 60%. Understanding which user problems are worth solving is crucial at this stage.

Spend time in the places your potential users hang out online. Read their Reddit comments, their tweets, their forum posts. The language they use to describe their problems should shape your entire app messaging. If they say they're "overwhelmed by choices," don't talk about your app offering "comprehensive options."

Getting Beyond Surface Demographics

The mistake most founders make is stopping at basic demographics. Sure, knowing your users are mostly between 28-45 helps with ad targeting, but it doesn't help you build the right features or write the right copy. You need to understand their context... when are they using your app? What else are they doing at the same time? Are they stressed, relaxed, commuting, at home?

For a healthcare app I developed, we found our core users were primarily checking symptoms late at night when they were anxious and couldn't sleep. That single insight changed everything—we simplified the interface for low-light conditions, made the language more reassuring rather than clinical, and added features specifically for tracking symptoms over time because these users were monitoring ongoing concerns, not just one-off questions.

The Real Cost of Casting Too Wide a Net

Here's what happens when you try to build an app for everyone—you end up spending three times as much on development and marketing, and you still don't get the results you were hoping for. I've seen this play out more times than I care to count, and its always the same story.

A few years back, we worked with a fitness app startup that wanted to serve "anyone interested in health." Sounds reasonable, right? But when we started building the feature set, they wanted yoga routines for beginners, strength training for bodybuilders, nutrition tracking for people with dietary restrictions, and guided meditation for stress relief. Each feature required different UI patterns, different content structures, and different backend logic. The budget ballooned from £80,000 to nearly £180,000 before we'd even finished the first version. Understanding how to match app features to your real budget becomes crucial when you're trying to serve multiple user groups simultaneously.

The Hidden Development Costs

Every additional user group you try to serve adds complexity—not just a bit of extra work, but exponential complexity. Your onboarding flow needs to account for different use cases. Your navigation structure becomes cluttered trying to serve everyone. Your database schema gets messier. Testing takes longer because you've got more user journeys to validate. I mean, it's genuinely exhausting just thinking about it.

But here's the thing; the development costs are actually the smallest part of the problem. The real damage comes in your marketing spend. When you target "everyone aged 18-65 interested in fitness," your cost per install skyrockets because your messaging isn't specific enough to resonate with anyone. That fitness app? They were paying £12 per install compared to competitors targeting "busy mums wanting 15-minute home workouts" who were paying £3. This is where understanding what price users will pay becomes essential for viable business models.

The Retention Nightmare

Even worse is what happens after people download your app. When users open it and see features that aren't relevant to them, they get confused about what the app is actually for. That fitness app had a 73% day-one abandonment rate. Users would download it, see the overwhelming array of options, and just... leave. They never came back because the app didn't make them feel like it was built for someone like them specifically.

Your support costs go up too—because different user groups have different questions, different problems, different expectations. You're essentially running customer support for five different apps under one roof, and that gets expensive fast.

Building Your First User Personas

Right, so you've narrowed down your target audience—now what? This is where user personas come in, and honestly, I've seen so many teams get this bit wrong. They either overcomplicate it with 50-page documents nobody reads, or they skip it entirely and wonder why their app doesn't resonate with anyone. The sweet spot is somewhere in between.

A good user persona isn't a fictional character you've invented—its based on actual research about real people who will use your app. When we built a healthcare booking app for a clinic chain, we didn't just say "busy professionals who need appointments." We dug deeper. We interviewed patients, sat in waiting rooms (yes, really), and found that our primary persona was actually Sarah, a 34-year-old working mum with two kids under 7 who needed to book appointments during her commute or late at night because those were literally the only free moments in her day. That specific insight changed everything about our notification strategy and the apps entire information architecture. If you're struggling with this process, check out our guide on how to build personas when every user seems different.

Start with 2-3 detailed personas maximum; you can always add more after launch once you have real usage data

For each persona, document their specific pain points, what triggers them to look for a solution, and what success looks like from their perspective. I usually include demographics (age, location, job), technical comfort level, device preferences, and most importantly—what problem they're trying to solve and why existing solutions haven't worked for them. One thing people often miss? The "jobs to be done" framework is more useful than demographic details alone. A 25-year-old and 55-year-old might have completely different demographics but share the exact same need—and therefore be part of the same persona. Keep your personas accessible; stick them on the wall where your team can see them daily, because these people should inform every decision you make about features, copy, and design.

How to Test Your Target Audience Before Launch

Testing your audience before launch isn't just smart—its absolutely necessary if you want to avoid wasting months of development time. I've seen too many teams skip this step and pay for it later when they realise their assumptions about users were completely wrong. The good news? You don't need a finished app to start testing, you just need something that represents your core idea well enough to get real feedback.

Start with landing page tests—these are cheap and fast. Build a simple page explaining what your app does, who its for, and what problem it solves; then drive targeted traffic to it through Facebook or Google ads. If you cant get people to leave their email address for £2-3 per signup, you're going to struggle when asking them to download and use your actual app. I ran this test for a fitness app targeting busy parents and discovered our messaging was completely off—we thought they cared about "efficiency" but they actually responded much better to "guilt-free exercise." That insight saved us from building the wrong onboarding experience.

Prototype testing comes next. Tools like InVision or Figma let you create clickable mockups that feel real enough for users to interact with. Book 10-15 interviews with people from your target group (not friends or family!) and watch them try to complete key tasks in your prototype. The things they struggle with will shock you, I promise. When testing an e-commerce app for a fashion retailer, we discovered users completely ignored our fancy category navigation and went straight to search—so we made search the hero feature instead. This testing phase is crucial for deciding which app features to build first.

Pre-Launch Testing Methods Worth Your Time

• Landing page conversion tests with paid traffic (£200-500 budget minimum)
• Prototype user interviews with 10-15 target users
• Competitor app reviews analysis (what are users complaining about?)
• Beta testing with 50-100 users who match your core persona
• Surveys to your existing customer base if you have one

Beta testing is where everything comes together. Once you have a working version, get it into the hands of real users who fit your target profile—not your entire team's mates who'll say its great to be polite. TestFlight for iOS and internal testing tracks on Google Play make this straightforward. Give your beta testers specific tasks to complete and watch your analytics obsessively. Are they finishing onboarding? Are they coming back on day 2, day 7? If your retention is rubbish in beta, it wont magically improve at launch.

One healthcare app we built had terrible beta retention until we discovered users didn't understand a core feature that was supposed to be the apps main value proposition. We added a 30-second explainer animation and retention jumped by 40%. That's the kind of insight you need before launch, not after you've spent £50k on user acquisition.

When Narrowing Down Actually Opens More Doors

I know it sounds backwards, right? You'd think focusing on a smaller group means fewer opportunities. But here's what I've seen happen time and again—when you nail the experience for one specific user group, you actually make it easier to expand later. Its like building a solid foundation before adding more floors.

There was this fitness app we built that started out targeting marathon runners only. Very specific. The client was worried they were leaving money on the table by not going after all fitness enthusiasts from day one. But by focusing on marathon runners, we could build features they actually needed—interval training trackers, race-day weather integration, pace calculators for different distances. The app took off in that community because it solved their exact problems better than generic fitness apps ever could.

Six months after launch, something interesting happened. Casual runners started downloading it because marathon runners kept recommending it. Then triathletes wanted in. Each expansion was easier because we had a proven product and real user feedback showing us what to adapt. We weren't guessing anymore; we were building on evidence. This approach of breaking down your big app idea into smaller steps makes expansion much more manageable.

Your first user group becomes your proof of concept. When you approach investors or seek partnerships later, you can show actual usage data and retention rates from a specific audience. That's way more compelling than vague promises about "reaching everyone."

What Narrow Focus Actually Gets You

Starting narrow gives you advantages that are hard to get any other way. Your marketing message becomes clearer because you know exactly who you're talking to and what problems they face. Your feature prioritisation gets simpler—does this help marathon runners or not? Your support team can become proper experts in your users' needs rather than generalists trying to help everyone.

The medical app space shows this perfectly. We've worked on apps that started targeting diabetes patients specifically, then expanded to other chronic conditions once they'd proven their approach worked. Compare that to health apps trying to do everything for everyone from launch—most of them struggle to gain traction because they're not genuinely solving anyone's specific problems well enough. When adding features, you need to consider whether each feature will actually make you money before committing development resources.

Building Your Expansion Roadmap

Once you've got your initial user group sorted, you can plan how to grow systematically. Look at adjacent groups who have similar but slightly different needs. For that fitness app, marathon runners led naturally to ultra-runners, then to triathletes, then to serious recreational runners. Each step was manageable because we understood the core use case already.

Your initial focus also helps you spot expansion opportunities you might never have considered. Users themselves will tell you where to go next through their feature requests and how they're trying to use your app. I mean, genuinely listen to those early users because they'll basically map out your product roadmap for you if you pay attention.

The biggest mistake I see is expanding too quickly before you've really nailed that first group. You end up with a half-baked product for multiple audiences instead of an excellent product for one. Take the time to get retention rates above 30% at day 30, get your core features working smoothly, and build a community around your initial user group. Then expansion becomes much less risky because you're building from strength rather than desperation.

Planning Your Expansion Beyond Launch

Once you've launched to your core user group and you're seeing good retention numbers (I'm talking 30%+ Day 7 retention at minimum), thats when you can start thinking about expansion. But here's the thing—you cant just suddenly decide to target everyone and expect it to work. I've seen too many apps dilute their product by trying to bolt on features for new user groups without proper planning.

The smart approach is to expand in concentric circles from your core users. If you launched a fitness app targeting busy professionals who work out at home, your next group might be gym-goers who want to track their sessions, not suddenly teenagers looking for dance workout videos. The closer the new user group is to your original audience, the less you'll need to change your core product. And that matters because every major feature addition increases your maintenance burden and potential bug surface area. When considering expansion, it's helpful to understand which market to expand your app into next based on data rather than gut feeling.

When to Add Your Second User Group

I usually advise clients to wait at least three to six months after launch before seriously pursuing a second audience segment. You need that time to iron out bugs, optimise your onboarding flow, and really nail the experience for your first users. One healthcare app I worked on launched for diabetes patients first, then expanded to hypertension management six months later once we'd sorted out all the prescription tracking issues and built a solid medication reminder system that we knew worked well.

Building Features That Serve Multiple Groups

The best way to expand is finding features that benefit both your existing users and new ones. When that diabetes app added blood pressure tracking, it enhanced the experience for existing users (many had both conditions) whilst opening the door to a whole new segment. That's the sweet spot—adding value without fragmenting your product vision or confusing your original audience with irrelevant features they dont care about.

Conclusion

After building apps across healthcare, fintech, and retail for nearly a decade, I can tell you this with complete certainty—starting with a focused user group isn't limiting, its liberating. Every successful app I've worked on that tried to be everything to everyone at launch ended up being nothing to anyone. The ones that succeeded? They knew exactly who they were building for and why that person should care.

The truth is launching narrow doesn't mean staying narrow forever. It means you're giving yourself the best possible chance to actually survive those first few months when most apps are fighting for their lives. When you focus on one user group, you can actually afford to talk to them, understand their pain points, and iterate based on real feedback rather than guesswork. I've seen apps pivot their entire feature set within weeks of launch because they were close enough to their users to notice what was actually being used versus what was being ignored.

Look, I get it—the temptation to cast a wide net is strong, especially when you're trying to justify investment or prove market size to stakeholders. But here's what I've learned from watching apps succeed and fail... the ones that make it are the ones that can answer "who is this for?" in a single sentence. Not a paragraph. Not a list of demographics. One sentence. If you cant do that yet, you're not ready to launch; you're ready to go back and do more research on your target audience and user segmentation strategy. And honestly? That's okay. Better to spend another month getting it right than six months trying to fix an app nobody wanted in the first place.