AJ's Journal.

The ICP Dilemma: What I Wish I Knew as a First-Time Founder

AJ Jindal

Hey fellow founders! Today I want to talk about something that kept me up at night during our early startup days - defining our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). If you're anything like me, you've probably struggled with this too.

What's This ICP Thing Anyway?

Simply put, your ICP is a clear picture of who you're building for. It includes both your buyer persona and user persona, along with their key characteristics. Sounds straightforward, right? Well, not quite...

Here's the thing about defining your ICP - it's incredibly challenging when you're just starting out. And you know what? That's completely normal. We all experiment in the beginning, trying to figure out who our perfect customer is. The trick I learned (the hard way) is to focus on just one target ICP at a time.

Our Story of Getting It Wrong

We started by targeting "Heads of Growth." Seems specific enough, doesn't it? Nope. We hadn't thought about:

  • What size companies they worked at
  • Which industries they were in
  • Their specific challenges and pain points

The result was a mess. Every conversation with potential customers led us down a different rabbit hole. Each person had their own unique problems and gave us completely different feedback on our MVP. We were lost with these conflicting inputs.

Then we expanded the circle, we started targeting:

  • Product Managers
  • Growth Managers
  • Business Owners

We even wrote different pitches for each! Classic rookie move. Things only started making sense when we narrowed down to "Heads of Customer Success at mid-stage companies." Sure, this later turned out to be a limited market with tons of competition (that's a story for another coffee chat), but the clarity it brought to our team was amazing. Suddenly everyone knew exactly what we were building and who we were selling to.

When Your ICP Isn't Clear, Everything Gets Messy

Trust me, unclear ICP definition makes everything harder:

  • Your Product Goes Haywire
    • The roadmap becomes a wishlist of competing features
    • Your dev team doesn't know which problems to solve first
    • You end up building a Swiss Army knife that does everything poorly
  • Your GTM Strategy Falls Apart
    • Sales pitch is hard to nail down
    • Marketing messages sound generic - we kept updating our core message on the website (almost every month)
    • You waste money on unfocused campaigns - we went to some events that didn't matter
  • You Get Stuck in a Loop
    • Decisions become impossibly complex
    • Resources scatter in all directions
    • Progress feels like running in circles

Breaking Out

Eventually what worked for us is picking ONE route where:

  • The market is big enough to matter
  • You actually care about the problem you're solving
  • We started from the top - what do companies care most about today and who's responsible for it

What I've Learned About ICPs

After all this trial and error, here's what stuck:

  • One ICP at a time - even if it's the wrong one, you will quickly learn that
  • Get super specific about:
    • Who they are
    • Where they work
    • What keeps them up at night
    • How they make decisions
  • Don't worry about missing out by being too focused. It's way better than being lost trying to please everyone.

Finding your perfect ICP is hard - you'll probably need a few tries before finding "the one." That's totally fine! Just remember to stay focused on one at a time. Your ICP will evolve as you learn more, and that's exactly how it should be.