Ideal Customer Profile

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

The sharp definition of who you serve — used by marketing for targeting, sales for qualification, and product for prioritization.

When to use this skill

• Defining ICP for a new product / segment
• Refining ICP from observed closed customers
• Auditing when pipeline quality / conversion is poor
• Pre-fundraise to articulate market position
• Sales qualification rubric build
• Marketing targeting for outbound + paid

The 8 ICP dimensions

1. Firmographics — industry, vertical, size, geography, age
2. Tech-stack signals — what they use today (and what's missing)
3. Buyer persona — role, level, tenure, team size
4. Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) — what they're trying to accomplish
5. Existing alternatives — how they solve the JTBD today
6. Trigger events — why now (new funding, new exec, regulation, etc.)
7. Budget authority — who controls spend
8. Reachability — can we find + contact them via channels we have

ICP vs Persona vs Segment

• ICP = the company/account (firmographics + tech + situation)
• Persona = the human buyer (role + motivations + objections)
• Segment = a cluster of similar ICPs (often by size or vertical)

Use ICP for "which companies." Use persona for "which humans within ICP."

Clarify First

Before defining the ICP, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• Existing customers vs greenfield — refine from closed-won/best-customer patterns vs design-partner proxy (the real ICP comes from data, not a guess)
• The JTBD the product solves — what customers are trying to accomplish (anchors firmographics, alternatives, and trigger events)
• Reachable channels you have — paid / outbound / events / content / partners (an ICP you can't reach is academic; drives the Reachability dimension)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Workflow

Step 1 — Start from your best customers

If you have customers:

• List top 20 by health, revenue, expansion
• Find common patterns across them
• That's your real ICP (not what you guessed)

If you don't have customers:

• Use design partners / pilot customers as proxy
• Be ready to revise after 10-20 real customers

Step 2 — Disqualify common myth-ICPs

Common "ICP" patterns that are wishful thinking:

• "Companies with 100-10,000 employees" — too broad
• "Innovative companies" — meaningless
• "Companies that want to grow" — everyone
• "Enterprise" — undefined; map to size

A real ICP excludes most companies.

Step 3 — Document the 8 dimensions

Per dimension, be specific.

Example for HR analytics SaaS:

Step 4 — Build the qualification rubric

For sales qualification, distill ICP to a scorable checklist:

Qualification (BANT-style):
- Industry fit: SaaS/services? (yes/no)
- Size fit: 200-2000 EE? (yes/no)
- Tech fit: Workday/BambooHR + ADP/Gusto? (yes/no)
- Authority: VP People+ in deal? (yes/no)
- Pain: actively trying to solve HR analytics? (yes/no)
- Budget: confirmed > $50K? (yes/no)
- Timeline: decision in next 6 months? (yes/no)

5+ yes = strong lead. <3 yes = disqualify.

Step 5 — Run icp_scorer.py

Audit ICP definition for specificity, score account lists against ICP.

python3 project-management/gtm/ideal-customer-profile/scripts/icp_scorer.py \
  --input icp_spec.json --format markdown

Step 6 — Refresh per quarter

ICP shifts:

• New customers reveal new patterns
• Product evolution opens new segments
• Market shifts (recession, regulation, competition)

Don't refresh weekly. Quarterly is healthy.

Decision frameworks

Firmographic specificity test

For each dimension, ask:

• Could I send a list of companies matching this to my BDR tomorrow?
• If not, sharpen.

Vague: "growing SaaS companies" Sharp: "US-headquartered B2B SaaS companies, $10M-$100M ARR, post-Series B, that have hired their first VP of Sales in last 12 months"