<100 subscribers
The Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is critical for every founder to understand. It spells out the type of customer who benefits most from your product. Unfortunately, most of the time we squint at this just as much as we do Product-Market Fit. Why? Because it's hard.
If your startup is a vehicle for delivering customer value, then the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) represents the customer, and the product is the value. The ICP is a sketch of the people who buy quickly, stick around, and tell their friends.
Most importantly, not every customer is your ideal customer. Without an ICP, you waste time chasing bad fits, overbuilding features, and confusing your team. With one, you know who to target, what to build, and how to grow with intent.
You don’t discover your ICP in a workshop — you earn it. You learn by shipping, selling, and listening. You start with a guess, then tighten it through patterns in usage, retention, and feedback. This is where AI shines: spotting the signals, clustering the cohorts, and showing you who’s really in your corner.
Let's explore more about your ideal customer.
Founders have always needed to triage customer feedback to maintain focus and momentum.
AI tools can now assist in categorizing and prioritizing customer requests based on alignment with product vision and potential impact.
SYSTEM
You are “FeedbackSorter,” an AI assistant for product managers.
USER
Here is a list of recent customer feature requests. Categorize each as 'Yes', 'No', or 'Maybe' based on our product roadmap and strategic goals. Provide a brief justification for each categorization.
[PASTE CUSTOMER REQUESTS]
Misaligned feature development can derail progress and dilute product focus.
AI analytics can predict the potential ROI and resource requirements of proposed features, aiding in informed decision-making.
plaintextCopyEditSYSTEM
You are “FeatureEvaluator,” an AI tool for assessing feature requests.
USER
Analyze the following feature requests and estimate their potential ROI, development time, and alignment with our core product objectives. Recommend whether to proceed, defer, or decline each.
[PASTE FEATURE REQUESTS]
Timeless
Ambiguous feedback often holds insights that can lead to significant product evolution or pivot opportunities.
Timely
AI clustering algorithms can identify patterns in 'maybe' feedback, revealing emerging customer needs or market trends.
Try This
plaintextCopyEditSYSTEM
You are “InsightMiner,” an AI assistant for uncovering patterns in customer feedback.
USER
Analyze the following ambiguous customer comments and identify common themes or unmet needs that could inform potential product pivots.
[PASTE CUSTOMER COMMENTS]
Timeless
Recognizing and focusing on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is crucial for sustainable growth.
Timely
AI-driven segmentation can help identify and target customers who align closely with your ICP, optimizing marketing and product development efforts.
Try This
plaintextCopyEditSYSTEM
You are “ICPAnalyzer,” an AI tool for customer segmentation.
USER
Based on our existing customer data, identify the characteristics of our Ideal Customer Profile and suggest strategies to attract and retain similar customers.
[PASTE CUSTOMER DATA]
This post is a part of the “Just in Time” series, where I revisit and adapt my experiences and advice for founders from the past 20 years. It is based on “On Customers: Just Say No, Or Yes, Or Maybe”, originally published on June 29, 2017.
Founders be like…
... https://paragraph.com/@vibefounders/just-in-time-the-ideal-customer-profile
🎯
@iamtherealyakuza.eth, you just received 100 claps from ＠mintclub on this content! Want to join the fun? Explore content, swipe right to clap, and earn $HUNT based on your own clapping activity. Your daily clap allowance: 23 👏 Install the Clap Mini App to get +50 free daily allowance 👇
if you get solicited or unsolicited feedback about your pre-pmf product you should be ecstatic that someone cared things to do: - ask lots of questions and thank them - don't need to explain anything archetypes of not to do: 1. some founders/PMs take the high horse attitude of "oh you're too dumb to understand what the product is meant to do. let me ask some condescending questions to make you realize how dumb you are to understand my product". 2. some people get super defensive or on the back foot and start explaining all technical, resource and other reasons why things are the way they are. the common pitfall is to think the user asking you "why aren't things the way i want them". no. treat it as, they're telling you how they expect things to be.
caveat to 2 is when the user is actually heavily involved in the product and 'building with you'
100% give me all the feedback! Bout time for another @intori look
👀
Hello db, building a new product , founders can use to capture more insightful feedback. Would love to share more with you
Send it over
It drives me absolutely CRAZY when founders are like this
Would add to make sure the user giving you feedback is actually a target customer / ideal customer or else their feedback can you lead you down the wrong path and feature bloat. Lot of ppl give you feedback but aren’t actually going to be a user of your thing initially. If you’re building a consumer product, ideally that first user should be you - makes it way easier to validate and build something great. If you yourself aren’t using the product that is a bad sign.
good point but fwiw my post wasn't about what to do with the feedback. it was about what to do with the person giving you the feedback in that interaction.
True, but also make sure you know it’s the ICP. This gets more real over time for sure but some of these early interactions are super helpful to finding them! Wrote about ICP just yesterday.. https://paragraph.com/@vibefounders/just-in-time-the-ideal-customer-profile
This exactly is where I'm giga thinking as I build a voice first feedback tool. At the end of the day, it's a network of innovators willing to give feedback to founders early. But just because a person is willing to give you feedback, doesn't mean they're the ideal users
Def agree these two archetypes are to be avoided. One thing I find helpful is to also run your assumptions by potential users or customers.. it will enlighten you quickly if you are on track or not. Don't do this up front, I usually do it at the point of discussion.. "Ahh so we put this here because we heard/thought you may want to x,y,z"
ICP, yeah you know me! Well, actually, most founders don't know who their ICP is - some might not even know what ICP stands for. New post on the Ideal Customer Profile for Vibe Founders: https://paragraph.com/@vibefounders/just-in-time-the-ideal-customer-profile Original post "On Customers: Just Say No, Or Yes, Or Maybe" (June 29, 2017): https://medium.com/unfounded/on-customers-just-say-no-or-yes-or-maybe-a7737ebb1016 Extra thanks to @jonathancolton for inspiring this one!
it's a good one - what tool are you using greg to keep all the product roadmap and goals context of the product included in prompting? One thing I'd add is - that the easiest way to have your ICP is to solve a real problem. That naturally gives you your first ICP - no extra theory needed.
Absolutely right! If you are solving a real problem you have talked to real people Nd know the problem is real. I think one of the challenges sometimes is the actual problem is a little opaque - people will tell you the answer they want you to believe not the actual thing you are doing for them. Luckily they wil often all tell themselves the same lie, haha I actually have a spreadsheet system I use. I will document and share it soon!
Awesome 🤩 looking forward to it. And yes, you’re right. People are great liars in the name of making builders happy.