ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)

A precise description of the customer who gets the most value from your product and is easiest to reach, sell and keep.

Example

Ops managers at 20–100 person logistics firms already using spreadsheets for scheduling.

'Small businesses' is not an ICP. If your description does not tell you where to find them tomorrow, it is not specific enough yet.

Persona — A short profile of a representative user — their role, goals, constraints and what they currently do instead.
Buyer vs user — The person who pays is often not the person who uses it, and they care about different things.
Positioning — The place your product occupies in a customer's mind relative to the alternatives they are already considering.
Segmentation — Dividing a market into groups with meaningfully different needs and buying behaviour.

Defining your ICP — The customer who gets the most value and is easiest to reach. If your definition does not tell you where to find them tomorrow, it is not specific enough. (12 min)
Buyer versus user in B2B — The person who uses it is often not the person who pays. Building only for the user gets you loved and unpaid. (10 min)
Jobs To Be Done — People do not buy products, they hire them to make progress in a situation. The frame that stops you building features nobody asked for. (10 min)
Positioning and messaging — Positioning is the place you occupy against the alternatives. Messaging is the words. Most startups get the second one wrong because they skipped the first. (12 min)
Getting your first ten customers — Not from a channel. From you, personally, one at a time — and that is the correct way to do it. (12 min)
Evaluating an idea honestly — Nine dimensions, assessed as evidence rather than as a score. What you know, what you assume, and what is still unvalidated. (15 min)