Your ICP determines everything you do

In partnership with

Your ICP determines everything you do.

It determines:

• What you build

• Who you market to

• What marketing channels you use

• How you price your product

• What content you make

• How you write your copy

It is the lifeblood of your company.

Yet most people get it wrong.

I’ll show you the right way to do it.

Estimated reading time: 2 min 2 sec

Background

Hey I’m Miguel!

I'm a new grad software engineer living in NYC and a part-time indie hacker. I built Journey Plus, an interface for Midjourney, that was recently acquired!

I used to be a pre-med student, but then I switched to computer science in the spring of 2021, my sophomore year. That's how I got started writing code.

I started with C++, and now I'm mainly building web apps with Next.js, TypeScript, and Supabase.

Who?

Who is the person or company that will benefit the most from your product?

Describe them.

That’s why it’s called a “profile”.

It’s a real-life description of a person or company.

This "profile" ends up becoming your customer.

Some factors to consider for an individual ICP:

• How old are they?

• What are their problems?

• What are their goals and aspirations?

• What's their job title or role?

• What industry do they work in?

• What's their income level?

• Where do they live?

• What are their hobbies and interests?

For a company ICP, consider:

• What's the company size?

• What industry are they in?

• What's their annual revenue?

• Where are they located?

• What's their business model?

• What are their main challenges?

Creating an "ideal customer profile" forces you to work under constraints.

You end up niching down to make a specific solution for a certain type of person or company.

This makes building and selling a lot easier.

Enter to win a $25,000 business grant

If you’re an early-stage marketing and creative business struggling to break through to that next level of growth, this program is for you.

The Breakthrough Grant from HoneyBook provides $25,000 in cash, tools, resources, and training to help up-and-coming businesses unlock their potential.

Simply share why you started your business and what winning this grant would help you achieve for your chance to win!

Apply today.

Example

Here’s an example of an ICP for a B2B company selling to B2C E-commerce companies:

• Company size: 50-200 employees

• Industry: E-commerce

• Annual revenue: $5-20 million

• Location: North America

• Business model: B2C online retail

• Main challenges: Inventory management, customer retention, and scaling operations

Now let’s come up with a few ideas of what to build for them:

• Inventory management software

• Transactional email marketing system for abandoned carts and upsells

• AI chatbot to handle simple support cases

I would then sell it to companies using these channels:

• Cold email to C-Suite Execs

• Google Ads for keywords like “E-commerce inventory management software“ and “How to scale E-commerce operations“

• Host a happy hour for E-commerce founders at industry conferences

Having this ICP makes it easier to figure out what to build and how to distribute to these companies.

Never underestimate the power of knowing exactly who you’re building for.

Benefits of making an ICP

Creating an ICP before building or selling will save you lots of time and energy.

Here are the biggest benefits you will notice after adopting this framework:

• Customer acquisition costs are much lower

• Churn is lower at the start since you are very niched down

• Your customer base is more engaged with your content

It’s like everything starts falling into place immediately.

This is the 80/20 of customer research.

Don’t forget to do it and iterate as you learn more about the person that you are trying to help.

Your ICP will start to evolve as you start to capture more of the market.

And that’s okay.

You will have the data you need to get to that next step.

But having this in place at the very start will get you very far.

What I’m reading