How Teams Outgrow Their First Idea Filters

v1 filters pick your first product. v2 filters are different.

What v1 Filters For

• Reachability with no audience.
• Pain you can name three buyers for.
• Spend that already exists.
• Weekly recurrence.

What v2 Filters For

• Adjacency to existing customers.
• Whether your audience is asking for it.
• Whether the build leverages existing infra.
• Whether it expands ACV without churn.

When to Switch

Once you have an audience and 10+ paying customers, v1 filters distort. They tell you to go after strangers when your customers are pulling you forward. Switch.

Common Mistake

Re-using v1 filters for feature decisions. Features are not products. Filter features by customer pull, not strangers.