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Sharpen your ideal customer profile into one sentence

An ideal customer profile names the buyers who care most about what makes your product different, in a sentence or two, and where to find them. April Dunford links broad definitions to weak positioning. Before you have customers, treat it as a hypothesis. Asking people whether a statement describes them invites polite agreement: offer competing statements and ask what is off.

Evidence C, limited evidenceStart here

Stage
Stage 1. No proven demandIs the problem real, and does anyone want this solved?
Category
Positioning
Time
2 to 3 hoursAwiser's estimate of the active work
Cash
No cash
Live calls
Live calls optional
First result
Within days
Risk
LowA few hours of thinking and a few messages. The risk is a narrow profile chosen on a hunch, or a broad one that changes nothing.
Needs
What makes your product different from the alternativesA few people you believe fit the profileWhere those people gather, online or offline

When does it fit?

  • You can say what makes you different: April Dunford defines best-fit customers as those who care a lot about that unique value.[1]
  • Your current definition is broad: Dunford says companies with weak positioning often have overly broad best-fit customer definitions.[2]
  • You already have users: you can compare segments by their share of signups and of revenue, as Preceden did.[8]

When should you skip it?

  • You plan to fill in a template and stop there: Dunford calls the fill-in-the-blanks positioning statement pointless and potentially dangerous without the analysis behind it.[1]

How do you run it?

  1. Start from your difference

    List what you do that the alternatives do not, then ask which buyers care most about that.

  2. Write who, context and pain

    One or two sentences: who they are, the situation they are in, and the specific pain.

  3. Name where they gather

    If you cannot say where to find them, the segment is still too broad: slice it smaller.

  4. Test with competing statements

    Show two or three versions and ask which fits and what is off, rather than a yes-or-no "is this you?".

  5. Ask your most engaged users

    If you have users, ask what type of people would benefit most; they tend to describe themselves.

  6. Revisit after the first customers

    Before customers, the profile is a hypothesis. Update it as buyers show which traits matter.

What usually happens?

  • A sentence or two is normal: Shopify says most ICPs take the form of a short paragraph or list of one to two sentences.[6]
  • Your happiest users describe themselves: Rahul Vohra says that when asked who would benefit most, they almost always do.[7]

Who has done it, and what happened?

Each case is one team's own report: what happened to them, not a typical result.

  • Matt Mazur, founder of Preceden, a timeline maker2021, Mixed result

    Used signup answers and revenue to pick professionals as the focus, removed school and teaching from the signup options, and rewrote examples around project planning.

    Matt Mazur reports that professionals were about 5% of signups but 40% of revenue when the decision was made.[8]

    A decision with its data rather than a measured result, from a product that already had paying users, and the post names the risk to the remaining revenue.

What does the evidence say against it?

  • Asking whether a statement describes someone invites agreement: the Pew Research Center links agree-format questions to acquiescence bias and recommends a choice between alternative statements.[5]
  • Narrowing has a cost: Matt Mazur weighed the risk of executing poorly and putting the other 60% of revenue at risk.[8]

How do you read the result?

What to count
Which statement people pick as describing them, what they say is off, and where they gather
When to read it
After five to ten responses
How to decide
Keep the version people pick on their own and fix the parts they flag. If you cannot say where to find these people, keep slicing: The Mom Test calls a good segment a who-where pair.[4]

What goes wrong?

  • Letting customers define the product: Dunford says customers are experts on their needs and pain, not on your product.[3]
  • A profile you cannot act on: Dunford expects the exercise to produce a much tighter definition of the ideal customer.[2]

How was it graded?

Evidence
C. Limited evidenceRecognised positioning methods support sharpening the profile and knowing where the segment gathers, and one founder report shows a profile chosen from revenue data, but no outcome data was found and the usual validation step has no source.
Verdict
Start hereCheap, and every later message and channel depends on it. Before customers, write it as a hypothesis and expect to revise it.

How the grades and verdicts are decided

Sources

  1. 1
    A Quickstart Guide to Positioning (opens in a new tab)Positioning with April Dunford, April Dunford. March 15, 2021. Method.
    Your best-fit target customers are customers that really care a lot about your unique value.
    There is likely a wide range of buyers that care about that value, but certain customers care a lot more than others. What are the characteristics of a customer that makes them care a lot about your differentiated value?
    I believe this exercise is not only pointless but potentially dangerous ... The exercise assumes that there is only one answer for each of the blanks, and you simply "know" what it is.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  2. 2
    Positioning and Pessimistic Product Thinking (opens in a new tab)Positioning with April Dunford, April Dunford. March 14, 2024. Method.
    Companies with weak positioning often have overly broad best-fit customer definitions.
    The answer should help us get a much tighter definition of what an ideal customer looks like.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  3. 3
    Don't let Customers Decide What Your Product Is (opens in a new tab)aprildunford.com, April Dunford. September 11, 2019. Method.
    Customers are experts on their own needs and pain. Customers are not experts on YOUR product.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  4. 4
    Quote from The Mom Test, as transcribed on Goodreads (opens in a new tab)Goodreads, Rob Fitzpatrick. Undated. Method.
    Good customer segments are a who-where pair. If you don't know where to go to find your customers, keep slicing your segment into smaller pieces until you do.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  5. 5
    Writing Survey Questions (opens in a new tab)Pew Research Center. Undated. Method.
    Research has shown that, compared with the better educated and better informed, less educated and less informed respondents have a greater tendency to agree with such statements. This is sometimes called an "acquiescence bias"
    A better practice is to offer respondents a choice between alternative statements.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  6. 6
    Ideal customer profile (opens in a new tab)Shopify. April 20, 2023. Method.
    Most ICPs take the form of a short paragraph or list (just one to two sentences total).
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  7. 7
    How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit (opens in a new tab)First Round Review, Rahul Vohra. November 12, 2018. Method.
    This is a very powerful question, as happy users will almost always describe themselves, not other people, using the words that matter most to them.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  8. 8
    Friday Updates: New Homepage, Focusing on Professionals, Data Intake Form, Acquisitions Anonymous, Startup (opens in a new tab)mattmazur.com, Matt Mazur. August 13, 2021. Founder report.
    For example, people who choose Professional Use have made up about 5% of sign ups but 40% of revenue.
    The risk of focusing on them is that you execute on it poorly and put the other 60% of revenue at risk.
    Read on October 20, 2026.

Sources last checked on October 20, 2026. First published on October 20, 2026.

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