Early stage products often fail to get enough interest from the market in spite of solving an important problem. These 3 letters could help you fix that – ICP.
Ideal Customer Profile is a framework to fine tune your targeting. Early stage products are different because the founders or product managers are still figuring out how to position and to whom.
Key elements of the ICP:
– Industry or vertical
– Annual Revenue
– Number of people in company or specific department/function/role
– Size of IT Budget
– Geography
– Current state – how is the problem being solved today? Or is not solved?
– Technology landscape – what other relevant solutions are being used?
– Complexity – multi DB, multi-geo/currency etc.
– Triggers -Why would the customer be looking for a new solution?
– Readiness to buy and level of pain
As with all the steps in early stage product building process, you can tune the ICP with validation and iteration.
If you don’t define the ICP you may end up wasting your time and money chasing customers who are not a good fit. What’s worse is that you are losing a chance to get actual product feedback and refine your solution.