Unexpected customers keep coming: decide a segment switch by two signals
Switch segments on whether they found you themselves and can name the use in their own words, not on volume.
Key points
- Drop inquiry volume from the decision
- Ask how they found you, in your reply
- On the call, hear their own work words
- List what you rebuild before switching
Overview diagram in preparation
Contents
Inquiry volume cannot decide a segment switch
A&A perspective
A segment switch means replacing the industry or role you sell to with a different one. Inquiry volume cannot decide it. Volume moves whether you run ads or collect referrals.
A&A perspective
Three inquiries are not all the same inside. Three from ads, three from referrals and three from people who searched you out all count as three. The number alone does not say whether demand was found.
Hypothetical example
Say a firm selling document-preparation support to accountants and lawyers gets 3 inquiries from construction in one month. Two are people whose cards it collected at a trade show; the remaining one came from search. By volume they look the same, but only 1 inquiry started outside the firm's own reach.
From the sources
Anthropic, which develops AI models, publishes a case-study page about Lovable, a service that turns plain language into an app.
From the sources
The page describes the starting point. In early 2023 co-founder Anton Osika posted a weekend experiment to GitHub as open source. It was built to let developers move faster with AI.
From the sources
The page then writes that the experiment spread, but the people who came to use it were not the developers he had built it for.
From the sources
Source wording: the people showing up to use it weren't the developers he had built it for
A&A perspective
Automate & Augment (A&A), which writes this article, reads that pairing as a turning point set by who arrived, not by how many. Spreading and the arrivals being different from the plan sit in the same sentence.
A&A perspective
Take volume out of the decision and what is left are observations about the person. You look at whether they found you on their own, and whether they can describe the use in their own work words.
Signal one: did they find you on their own
A&A perspective
The first signal is whether the person found you on their own. An inquiry that began because you reached out only reflects your own hypothesis; it is not evidence that the demand was already there.
A&A perspective
Checking it is simple. In your first reply, ask what they were looking for and where they came across the service. If the answer is search, a forward from an acquaintance, or a comparison article they dug up, it came from outside your own reach.
A&A perspective
Inquiries that started from a card handed over at a trade show, an announcement you sent, or an introduction you asked for are taken out of the decision. You still pursue them as deals, but they do not count as grounds for moving the segment.
Hypothetical example
In the earlier case, the 3 construction inquiries come down to 1 once the 2 trade-show ones are removed. Say that 1 arrived after searching for a way to cut the work of sorting site photos. That single inquiry is the only one the decision can use.
From the sources
The Lovable page writes that a few days after the experiment spread, the founder became certain of something.
From the sources
What the page carries is his line that the world is not heading for a future where only engineers look at code to build software.
From the sources
Source wording: the world is not going into a future where just us engineers look at code to build software
A&A perspective
A&A reads the deciding input here as an observation of who had arrived, not a count. The page does not present a number of inquiries as the turning point.
Signal two: can they describe the use in their own work words
A&A perspective
The second signal is whether the person can describe the use in their own work words. You check this on a call. An explanation that repeats your pitch and an explanation that came out of their own job use different vocabulary.
A&A perspective
An explanation out of their own job carries step names and document names. Who in which step produces which document, and by when. A repeat of your pitch produces only words that fit any industry: efficiency, fewer hours, digital transformation.
A&A perspective
The way to ask is to have them describe who does that job today and how. If specific step names and document names come out, the use has taken shape for them. If the answer stops at a generic complaint, the use has not settled on their side either.
Hypothetical example
Say in that one construction inquiry the person explains that the site supervisor photographs the daily report and sends it to the office in the evening, and an administrator pastes it into the site photo ledger the next morning. That is their own work language. If it stops at wanting to digitize the site, it is not yet usable in the decision.
From the sources
Among the same publisher's case-study pages, the one about Lex, a service for people who write, describes a different movement. The Lex team initially worked on improving the interface for writers. What it addressed were pain points such as cumbersome track changes.
From the sources
After that, the page writes, they realized the potential of generative AI to help the work of writing. The audience stayed writers. What moved was where they saw the value.
A&A perspective
A&A does not file these two as the same kind of switch. One is a case where the audience itself was replaced; the other is a case where the audience stayed and the reading of value moved. The point of hearing the use in their own words is to separate the two in advance. If the audience itself is being replaced, you go on to the split in the next section. If only the reading of value moved, the people you sell to do not change, so no split is needed.
Before switching, split what you rebuild from what you reuse
A&A perspective
You move the segment only when people with both signals keep arriving. Once you decide to move, you first write on one sheet what gets rebuilt and what gets reused.
A&A perspective
What gets rebuilt is the basis of your estimates and the shape of your delivery. The estimate basis is assembled from the hours and rates of the previous industry. The delivery shape is built to the previous industry's acceptance standard. Neither fits once the industry changes.
A&A perspective
What you reuse is the technology and the process. The models you use, how the processing is assembled, the review steps and the division of work all survive the change. Explainer material and past examples sit in between: the structure stays and only the examples inside are swapped.
Hypothetical example
Say an estimate for accountants and lawyers was built around hours per document set. For a construction site photo ledger the unit becomes per site. Once the unit changes, the numbers behind the estimate are a rebuild. Reading images and filling in fields, on the other hand, carries over as it is.
A&A perspective
This split is needed because, in A&A's reading, a switch costs a contract service business more than it costs a product business.
From the sources
The Lovable page writes that its users often cannot read the code themselves, so they are trusting the output to work.
From the sources
The page also writes that every new model release goes through the same evaluation the company has run from the start. What that evaluation measures is how often the system hits a wall and produces an app that is broken, or an app that is not what the user asked for.
A&A perspective
A&A reads this passage as a case of putting work into how pass and fail are checked rather than into the technology itself. In contract work the equivalent is the estimate basis and the delivery shape. The page says nothing about the costs of a contract business.
Summary
A&A perspective
When people unlike your plan keep arriving, the decision starts by moving away from volume. You look at whether they found you on their own and whether they can describe the use in their own work words.
A&A perspective
You move the segment only when people with both signals keep arriving. Before moving, write on one sheet what gets rebuilt (the estimate basis and the delivery shape) and what gets reused (the technology and the process).
A&A perspective
You also set, at the same time, how long you keep observing and the date until which the decision is held. Two or three inquiries are a small sample and are not an estimate of demand.
Whether to switch segments is decided not by inquiry volume but by whether they found you on their own and can describe the use in their own work words. Move the segment only when people with both signals keep arriving, and before moving, write on one sheet what gets rebuilt (the estimate basis and the delivery shape) and what gets reused (the technology and the process).
FAQ
Should we stop looking at inquiry volume altogether?
Volume is for counting how many people carry both signals. What it is not for is being the reason to switch. It moves with ads and referrals, so it does not explain what happened.
How many people with both signals does it take before we move the segment?
This article sets no threshold. Neither source page states a number of inquiries that a decision needs. Instead you set, in advance, how long you keep observing and how few arrivals by that date mean you do not move.
If we switch segments, do our past examples and explainer material become unusable?
The structure stays and the examples inside are swapped. What gets rebuilt is the estimate basis and the delivery shape; the technology and the process carry over. Examples and explainer material sit in between: the frame stays and the contents are replaced.
Sources & editorial note
Primary pages read for this article. Publication dates below belong to the sources; access dates record our research.
- Lovable helps anyone create software 20x faster with Claude
Anthropic · undated case-study page; no visible publication date
Accessed 2026-10-25 - Lex streamlines the writing process with Claude
Anthropic · undated case-study page; no visible publication date
Accessed 2026-10-25