PROMPT: This is a great start, but this is only one person, n of 1 – someone making a AI-based web app. We want to make the Azure Portal better for everyone. Please write a short blog zooming out. Suggest good segments we’d potentially want to consider as a PM on the Azure Portal. For simplicity, our goal is to help as many unique companies successfully get started with Azure. Some of the components we’d want to consider in our segmentation are company size, language / geography, industry, tech stack. Once we have about six clearly-defined segments, propose a method of prioritizing them, and pick one to target for our initial efforts.
Title: Beyond n=1: Segmenting Azure Portal Users to Maximize Startup Success
As a PM on the Azure Portal, it’s easy to optimize based on the loudest user pain or most recent support ticket. But if our north star is helping as many unique companies successfully get started with Azure, we need a broader view. We need to segment.
Let’s zoom out from the single-user struggles and ask: who are the users trying to build on Azure? What do they need, and how can the portal better meet them where they are?
🎯 Our Goal
Maximize the number of unique companies who successfully launch on Azure.
Success means getting from zero to live—with clarity, confidence, and minimal friction. To do that, we need to design for more than just one persona. We need to serve the right segments, in the right order.
🧩 Proposed Segmentation Framework
We’ll define segments based on:
- Company size (solo founder → SMB → enterprise pilot teams)
- Language/geography (English-first vs. global users with local infra needs)
- Industry (e.g., AI, e-commerce, manufacturing, education)
- Tech stack (low-code/no-code, traditional web dev, container-native)
- Experience level with cloud (first-time vs. migrating from AWS/GCP)
🧭 Six Key Segments
| Segment | Description | Common Needs | Portal Gaps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Indie Builders / First-Time Founders | Solo devs or tiny teams launching a new SaaS, often pre-incorporation | Free tier setup, GitHub Actions, Node/React, local DBs | Identity confusion (credit card reuse), environment clarity, step-by-step onboarding |
| 2. SMB Agencies / MSPs | Regional dev shops setting up cloud infra for clients | Reusable templates, resource governance, cost transparency | Poor multi-client mgmt UX, lack of guided setup |
| 3. Enterprise Pilot Teams | Innovation labs within larger companies testing POCs | Integration with existing Azure infra, RBAC, ARM templates | Overwhelmed by consumer-oriented UX, lack of automation defaults |
| 4. Global-First Builders | Non-US-based startups, often multilingual or regulated (e.g., EU, LATAM) | Local data residency, billing in local currency, docs in native language | Docs & UX not localized, startup offers not globally consistent |
| 5. AI-Heavy Startups | Companies building AI-native apps (like LLM wrappers, vector DBs, etc.) | GPU provisioning, prompt lifecycle mgmt, RAG patterns | No clear AI onboarding flow, inconsistent pricing clarity |
| 6. No-Code/Low-Code Founders | Business users launching MVPs on Power Platform, Copilot Studio, etc. | Copilot Studio, Dataverse, Logic Apps, prebuilt templates | Fragmented UX between Azure and Power Platform portals |
🧮 Prioritization Method
We’ll prioritize based on three dimensions:
- Volume – How many potential companies fall into this segment?
- Velocity – How quickly can they get to value if we help them?
- Virality – Will success in this segment bring in more users (e.g., via word of mouth, agencies, OSS projects)?
We can use a weighted scoring model (e.g. V³ Index = Volume × Velocity × Virality) to rank each segment.
🥇 First Target: Indie Builders / First-Time Founders
Why?
- High volume: Thousands of new developers spin up projects each month.
- High velocity: With better guidance, they can ship an MVP in days—not weeks.
- High virality: They share what they build (and how they built it) publicly on GitHub, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
They’re also the most underserved by enterprise-centric portal UX. Helping them succeed unlocks future customers, not just current ones.
✅ Next Steps
- Design an Indie Builder Starter Flow
- A “founder-first” onboarding path with clear setup for web apps + GitHub CI + DB
- Credit card transparency: flag previous use, suggest paths (e.g. waitlist, verification)
- Launch Visual Resource Map
- Show how App Service, DB, App Plan, and Resource Group relate
- Enable safe renaming, easy cost estimation, and quick delete/recreate options
- Instrument and Iterate
- Use product telemetry + exit surveys to track friction points in the first 7 days
- Run experiments with improved starter templates or AI-generated infra setups
Bottom Line:
To help more companies succeed on Azure, we need to stop designing for a generic “user” and start optimizing for real-world builder types. The indie founder segment is our wedge. Let’s make Azure feel like home—for them, and the millions like them just getting started.
Leave a Reply