Article · 15 min read

Define the ideal customer profile

Reforge Guides Freemium Intermediate

This guide breaks an ICP into demographic, psychographic, and position attributes, then walks through a real worked example, Wealthfront's Tax Loss Harvesting product, showing each attribute filled in. It is useful specifically because it treats problem-solution fit as a check on your ICP, not just a list of traits. Treat it as a template to fill in with your own numbers rather than something to only read.

  • Split your ICP into demographic, psychographic, and position attributes rather than one long list.
  • Verify your ICP against a real worked example before trusting your own draft.
  • Confirming problem-solution fit is part of confirming the ICP, not a separate step.
Open on reforge.com ↗

It answers 4 questions

  1. What is an ideal customer profile and how do I define mine?
  2. What's the difference between an ICP, a buyer persona, and a target market?
  3. How do I define an ideal customer for a product no one is searching for yet?
  4. How do I keep my whole team aligned on who our ideal customer is once we start hiring?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. Market size is meaningless until you know exactly who you're for, and Lenny turns that into a concrete, repeatable ICP exercise... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to identify your ideal customer profile (ICP) Lenny Rachitsky
  4. The best book on positioning against competitors by understanding the alternatives customers actually consider. Directly turns... aprildunford.com Book · ~200 pages Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April Dunford
  5. Turns the vague feeling of product-market fit into a number you can move. Ask users how they would feel if they could no longer... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit Rahul Vohra
  6. Moore's beachhead idea is the definitive case for winning one narrow segment before you touch the broader market, which is... Geoffrey A. Moore Book · ~240 pages Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers Geoffrey A. Moore
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →