How the best do it

We are opening a new market, the US or Southeast Asia or the Gulf. Do we carry the same ICP across or start again?

The short answer

Carry the problem, redo the profile. The job your product does usually travels, but company sizes, who owns the budget, what counts as expensive, how long procurement takes and which channel reaches them almost never do. The most common Indian mistake is assuming the US is the automatic next market when the Gulf or Southeast Asia may be closer to your existing buyer behaviour and compliance reality. Do it the way you did India: five to ten target accounts, one referenceable win, one story, then widen. And budget for the fact that a market where you have no logos and no network is an early stage company again, not a distribution exercise.

Go deeper, your way

4 hand-picked resources, 4 India-specific, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Argues plainly that the US is not automatically your next market and that the GCC, Southeast Asia or Japan may fit your product better, then walks through direct, reseller and marketing-led entry for each.

Indian SaaS And The Art Of Going From Local To Global

From Inc42 by Sandeep Chawda 10 min read

Open inc42.com →

The same ground, at another level

How who you sell to reads from a different seat.

What is an ICP and how is it different from a persona? People use both words for the same thing. An ICP describes the company you want as a customer: size, industry, what they already use, what has to be true for your product to matter. A perso... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → How do I qualify a deal properly instead of just hoping the enthusiastic person can buy? Enthusiasm is not authority. Before you invest another hour, you want four things: a named pain the buyer can quantify, the person who controls the... Doing the work 4 resources → How do I get the team to actually use the ICP instead of nodding at a slide and then doing what they want? An ICP that lives in a deck is decoration. Make it operational: turn it into fields in the CRM, into the lead scoring, into the list an SDR is allo... Leading a GTM team 4 resources →

Terms in this answer

Ideal Customer Profile Carried Interest

People also ask

What is an ICP and how is it different from a persona? People use both words for the same thing. An ICP describes the company you want as a customer: size, industry, what they already use, what has to be true for your product to matter. A perso... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → We have about fifteen customers and they are all different. How do I find an ICP out of that? Do not look at who bought, look at who is happy. Rank the fifteen by usage and by whether they would be annoyed if you disappeared, then take the t... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → How do I qualify a deal properly instead of just hoping the enthusiastic person can buy? Enthusiasm is not authority. Before you invest another hour, you want four things: a named pain the buyer can quantify, the person who controls the... Doing the work 4 resources → Half my pipeline is outside our ICP because those are the leads that came in. Do I chase them? Chase them to learn, close them only if they close fast. Off-ICP deals are seductive because they are there and someone said yes to a meeting, and ... Doing the work 4 resources → How do I get the team to actually use the ICP instead of nodding at a slide and then doing what they want? An ICP that lives in a deck is decoration. Make it operational: turn it into fields in the CRM, into the lead scoring, into the list an SDR is allo... Leading a GTM team 4 resources → Should we sell to Indian SMBs, Indian enterprises, or skip India and go straight at US buyers? Pick on payback and on where your product is genuinely better, not on prestige. Indian SMB gives volume, fast feedback and brutal price sensitivity... Leading a GTM team 5 resources →

Also in Starting Up

The same ground, over in Understand your customers, our Starting Up track.

How do I talk to customers without them just telling me what I want to hear? Stop pitching and start interrogating their past. Ask about what they actually did last time the problem hit, what it cost them, and what they trie... 24 resources → What is an ideal customer profile and how do I define mine? An ICP is a precise description of the customer who gets the most value from you and gives you the most back, by firmographics, situation, and the ... 2 resources →
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