Knowing your target audience should be everyone’s top business obsession. Since the beginning of our journey at Dether, we’ve always asked ourselves: who are we targeting? What problems are these people facing? To what extent does the situation differ from one region to another? How are we going to reach them? These questions seem simple; yet, they are crucial for our success! It has led us to meet with our potential community of users to better understand their needs and frustrations, and this has proven to be a golden opportunity to better shape Dether.
After publishing Dether’s market study stressing our go-to-market strategy, the Dether team is happy to present a brief introduction of our target audience! This is not a complete overview of Dether’s target audience, but it gives a better understanding of who we are targeting. Although we’ve talked to many potential users who’ve shown us many different motivations for their interest in cryptocurrency, we’ve decided to pick four personas of users that inspired us. Their photos are not shown, and their names have been changed in order to preserve their anonymity.
1. Hassan, the Tunisian developer and human rights activist.
Hassan lives in Tunis. Since his childhood, he’s been a fan of video games. He used to spend his days playing video games in the city’s arcade, where he would meet up with his friends.
At 18, his mom bought him his first computer. He started playing with computer games and quickly realized that he wanted to become a developer. But as a human rights activist during the Arab Spring, he soon became interested in blockchain technology, and more particularly in Ethereum.
He wanted to build a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), that would allow him and other residents of the country to express themselves freely, without censorship, in a country where any kind of public space is controlled by the police, making it difficult to criticize institutions.
He also plans to set up a transparent voting system to allow his community to designate the future elected representatives of the country. Although he’s closely following DAO projects, he cannot interact with the Ethereum blockchain because he doesn’t own ether.
His first thought was to mine ether, but he needed a more powerful computer, and electricity bills were expensive. Then he thought of buying ether online. He has a bank account, but no online exchange accepts Tunisian dinar.
Today, he is looking for a simple and effective solution to acquire ether by relying on the millions of Franco-Tunisians going back and forth between France and Tunisia, who are able to play the role of mobile human ether ATMs.
2. Adama, the hard worker immigrant from Mali.
Adama is a young Malian immigrant currently based in Paris. He is from a small village near Markala in Mali. He crossed North Africa two years ago to go to France. As he was fleeing the misery of his home country, he spent all of his money and that of his mother’s to come to France to find a better life.
Now, it’s been two years since he’s been working on construction sites in Paris with other people from different countries in Africa who are also being paid minimum wage.
While he struggled to find a job and a shelter that he shares with other employees from Mali and Senegal, he saves a part of his salary every month to send money to his mother to pay off his debt and help her live decently. Because of this, Adama goes through Western Union every month. A company that takes a 10% commission fee every time he sends money to his mother.
Fed up with this system, Adama attended one of the monthly “Ether Africa” Meetup in Paris and learned more about Ethereum. Today, he would like to send ether to his mother, but he also would like her to convert the cryptocurrency into fiat CFA Franc once she receives her ether. With no time to waste, he desperately seeks a quick and effective solution.
3. Angel, fighting hyperinflation in Caracas. Angel is an electrician in Caracas,Venezuela. He is the father of two boys and works hard to provide for his family and support their needs. Angel didn’t attend school when he was young, and now he wants his two sons to study at college, so he’s started saving money.
Although he has a steady job as there’s always a need for an electrician in Caracas, Angel is having a hard time putting money aside for his two boys’ futures because of the hyperinflation that is taking place in his country. Consumer prices rose by 800% which decreases the value of the money he makes every month.
His customers always pay him in cash and today, he is looking for a solution, like ether or another cryptocurrency, that will allow him to use the cash he makes and convert it into a safe-haven currency as an investment.
4. Ania, the future rockstar?
Since she was a child, Ania has always been a “natural performer,” just like her father loved to call her. Whether “Billie Jean” is playing on the radio, or she’s giving a private concert in the mirror, she is always the first one to sing on the dance floor … or in the middle of the street.
Since she started singing and dancing in a band, she’s been performing in many local bars. Her audience keeps asking for more music. Now, she’s looking for solutions to listen to music on demand, as well as upload her music to gain popularity. She’s heard about Ujo Music, a home for artists that allows them to own and control their creative content and be paid directly for sharing their musical talents with the world.
But Ania’s never had the chance to own ether. Cash is king in her hometown.
With Dether, she’ll be able to upload her album to Ujo Music to let the whole world know about her talent. Whenever a user listens to one of her songs, she’ll automatically get paid in ether within seconds. Her goal is to earn enough ether on Ujo Music in order to cash it out afterwards and record her brand new album.
5. Hans, the German student who wanted to buy ether.
Hans is a business school student in Berlin. Since his internship at Rocket Internet, he’s been interested in the startup ecosystem and new technology-related topics.
He started attending conferences and Meetups about new technologies and successful startups. Eventually, he discovered blockchain technology after attending a conference about the use of smart contracts.
He then wanted to invest some of his savings in ether. Observing that the ether price was 90$ on May 18, 2017, he went through an online exchange to transfer his savings from his bank account.
But by the time his account was validated due to KYC regulations and the bank carried-out the transfer to the online cryptocurrency exchange, the price had already risen to 120$. Like Hans, tomorrow millions of people will look for a quick and efficient way to get ether without having to go through a middleman or a long and cumbersome process.
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Previously, it is so expensive to send money internationally. With the existence of cryptocurrency, we can bypass that slow process and expensive service fees traditionally charged by banks.