Article · About a 15 minute read

Adjacency Matrix: How to expand after PMF

Jason Cohen · A Smart Bear Free Intermediate

This is the clearest piece we found on the actual question: when a tight ICP has become too tight and you are leaving real customers out. Jason Cohen (founder of WP Engine) gives you concrete conditions for when you have earned the right to broaden, plus a matrix for judging which adjacent customers are close enough to serve without breaking your product. It treats over-narrowing as a real risk, not just a virtue, which is the honest framing.

• You have likely earned the right to broaden once you have won roughly 5% or more of your defined segment, growth in your current channel is bottlenecked, or you have the profit to fund a second motion.
• Score each candidate adjacent segment against six areas (marketing, sales, service, product, engineering, business model): if more than one needs a full overhaul, it is not really adjacent and you are probably chasing the wrong customers.
• Expanding a narrow ICP is far easier than refocusing a broad one, so the fix for over-narrowing is a deliberate next segment, not blowing your definition wide open.