Article

Why your ideal customer profile should evolve with your startup

Clarify Free Intermediate

This article is squarely about treating the ICP as an ongoing read rather than a document you write once and file away, which is the exact closing instruction in your short answer. It walks through the signals that suggest it's time to revisit your definition versus signals that just mean you're chasing an outlier. A good complement if you want a second framework alongside the a16z piece for deciding when a shift is real.

  • An ICP is a living hypothesis that should be revisited on a schedule, not a static document.
  • Distinguish signals that mean your market has genuinely shifted from signals that are just one-off outliers.
  • Revisiting your ICP regularly keeps product, sales, and marketing decisions aligned as you grow.

The question it answers

  1. How do I know if I've defined my ICP too narrowly and I'm leaving obvious customers out?

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 author of Crossing the Chasm explaining beachhead selection in plain, modern language, the fastest way to absorb the... Lenny's Podcast / Lenny's Newsletter Podcast · ~75 min Geoffrey Moore on finding your beachhead, crossing the chasm, and dominating a market Lenny Rachitsky & Geoffrey Moore
  5. 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
  6. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →