Analysis of CA to the startup startup phase

Good day.
The other day, and I decided to do some interesting Internet affairs, and in the germ I had / I had one question ... Where can I ask a question other than Habr - I can’t even imagine.

So, actually - the subject itself :-) How can you conduct an Analysis of the Target Audience before the project is launched directly. That is - gender, income level, status, social status and everything else on the standard set. As input data - the subject of the project, the desired contingent, Western competitors. The subject itself is quite wide.

For what it is done, I think it is clear - sharpening a project for an audience, targeted positioning, advertising, etc. And so, for general development - always useful information. And the very logic of the project to build under it.

What mechanisms can there be? For the time being, I see only this option: drawing up a certain semantic core of the project, and then selecting users of a social network (vkontakte, for example, conveniently), and studying the questionnaires for the necessary data.
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What are your thoughts on this?