Ideal Customer Profile

An Ideal Customer Profile describes the type of company that gets the most value from what you sell and is easiest for you to win and keep. It is about companies, not people. Buyer personas come later, in the approach stage. A good ICP is narrow enough to say no to: if it fits every business in the UK it is not a profile, it is a wish.

The profile has four parts. Firmographics: sector, size, location, ownership and stage. Pains: the problems you solve that these companies actually feel. Triggers: events that make the pain urgent. Disqualifiers: the signs that a company looks like a fit but will waste your time.

1. 01Scans the public pages of your website and writes a one-paragraph summary of what you sell and to whom. You confirm or correct it.
2. 02Asks a handful of context questions as tappable cards: how you sell today, deal size, sales cycle, who signs. Every card has an AI-suggested answer so you are choosing, not typing.
3. 03Drafts three candidate profiles, each a different bet on where your best customers cluster, with the reasoning shown.
4. 04Lets you pick one and refine it card by card: add a sector, drop a region, tighten the size band, add a disqualifier.
5. 05Writes the narrative: a few paragraphs a new hire could read and understand who to look for and who to walk past.

Every later stage depends on it. Buying signals only mean something against a defined profile. Data tools are chosen because they can find that profile. Openers are written for the roles inside that profile. Get this loose and the rest of the plan is loose too, which is why the studio spends the most time here and why you can come back and edit it at any point. Editing the profile flags the later stages for a refresh, so nothing drifts out of step.

• Describing your current customers rather than your best ones. The two overlap less than most founders expect.
• Using turnover bands you cannot observe. Companies House filings give you headcount and balance sheet size for most UK companies. Precise revenue for a small private company is usually a guess.
• Skipping disqualifiers. They save more time than any other line in the plan.
• Writing one profile for two different products. Duplicate the plan instead and give each its own.