Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is the type of customer who naturally understands and values your product. They don’t need convincing—they already get why it’s valuable.
Focusing on your ICP leads to higher conversion rates, less churn, better retention and greater focus for your team. Of course, this leads to growth. On the flip side, Non-ICP and Anti-ICP customers waste your time, drain resources, and churn quickly. This guide will help you define your ICP, avoid the wrong customers, and refine your value proposition for maximum alignment.
As a SaaS Growth professional, the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is really one part of the core assessments that you need to do when building your growth strategy. We are familiar with the ICP concept and the need for alignment with our Value Proposition.
This is a great starting point, but have you taken the time to map your Non-ICP and Anti-ICP customers/businesses?
Failing to identify all three can leave you open to a problem later, once the business is scaling. It can be tricky, especially when sometimes they are very similar.
What is an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?
You can certainly start to identify your ICP by going through Early Adopters and Early Customers during the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) phase, but you probably won’t be truly aligned with it until you reach Product Market Fit (PMF). At this point, you know who likes your product, you know who pays for it, you know who stays and you know who tells others about it.
ICP can be quite obvious actually, as long as you get out of your own way and listen to the market and your customers. (Hint, getting out of your own way is the hardest part. Remove the ego. Start listening.)
Find the people that see the value in your product instantly without you having to “sell” it to them. Find the people who leave you very detailed 5-star reviews. Find the people that email your customer success and support teams making valuable suggestions for product developments (you know, the ones you actually like and put on the roadmap).
An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) isn’t just about demographics—it’s about fit. Your ICP is the type of customer who:
- Already understands your Value Proposition—you don’t need to convince them.
- Has a specific problem that your product solves perfectly.
- Can afford your solution and is motivated to buy.
Does this sound like a dream in SaaS? If you’ve never done this well it can almost sound too good to be true. The reality is that you might just not have niched down enough to really see it.
How to Define Your ICP
To nail down your ICP, answer the following:
- Demographics / Firmographics / Something similar
- Pain Point / Problem: The specific issue that makes look for a solution
- Fears: What keeps them up at night? What happens if they don’t solve the problem?
- Dreams: What does success look like for them? How does your product help them get there?
- Using the Dreams reference, also map your path to awesome. Be clear about trigger points and highlighting value. Get them there and get them there fast.
The Power of Knowing Your ICP in SaaS
ICP is a powerful thing. It shouldn’t be underestimated. Marketing is more efficient, sales cycles are shorter, churn is lower and pricing is less of an issue (assuming your pricing strategy is accurate).
Personally I also find that an ICP is generally more tolerant of pretty much everything. They will tolerate a less than perfect signup process. They will tolerate a slightly slower response from customer service. They will try and find an answer or “fix” something without just cancelling right away.
They are happier, your team is happier, the business is better off.
Focus on them.
Non-ICP: The Customers Who Kinda Fit (But Not Really)
Non-ICPs are hard to deal with in a sense because they are sort of an ICP, but not really. This makes a ton of SaaS businesses accept them because half the time they do pay. The problem is that they consume things. They consume customer service, they consume focus, they consume community space. The problem with these consumers is that they are super unlikely to reach any kind of metric you’ve created like ideal CAC or ideal LTV.
So what I usually suggest is to either refer them to another business or offer them a lighter version. In any case of good SaaS businesses, they meet the customer where they are.
At the end of the day, you might feel like you are doing the right thing by accepting non-ICPs because they are nice, they like the product and sometimes they pay – but the reality is they neither of you are really helping each other. Find a way to not deal with them. No-touch is ideal if you don’t want to reject them. This is fine.
Some key points about non-ICPs:
- Don’t fully align with your ideal use case.
- Need excessive hand-holding.
- Churn faster or downgrade.
- Increase Cost to Service (CTS)
- Decrease CAC : LTV ratios
- Might still leave you a good review
- Might still refer (the wrong) people to you 🙂
Anti-ICP: The Customers You Should Actively Avoid
It’s hard to explain the difference between a non-ICP and an anti-ICP sometimes. One way to think about it is that non-ICPs are still positive people and anti-ICPs are negative people. That’s a weird thing to quantify, but take a deep look at feedback in a pool of people that are not ICPs and you will quickly see what I mean.
A non-ICP might still really like your business or product, but they don’t really pay you or make much financial sense. You might say things like “No, he never ended up upgrading. Great guy though”. Classic case of non-ICP.
An anti-ICP really doesn’t like you, doesn’t like your brand and doesn’t like the product. They complaint about pretty much everything. Sometimes they threaten to make complaints or post on social media. They often leave bad reviews.
They should be rejected wherever possible. If you never let them buy, they never become a customer – and that’s a beautiful thing for me.
Some key points about anti-ICPs:
- Need convincing because they don’t really have the problem you solve.
- Constantly ask for discounts, refunds, or custom features.
- Drain resources with excessive support and complaints.
- Have high churn rates and bring low value.
- Make threats about anything really.
- Constantly compare you to other solutions that are “way better”
- People you hope never call / email again.
How to Get Buy-In from Your Ideal Customer Profile
I can’t be too prescriptive here because you need to go through the steps of describing your value prop, the problem you are solving, their fears and dreams etc. However, let me elaborate a bit on getting buy in from the ideal customer profile in a general sense.
Demonstrate your understanding to show expertise:
If you’ve done your job right, you’ve niched down to a place where your product offers real value and solves a real problem. Let them know that you “get it”. Don’t wait for them to be on a call with you or take a free trial. Tell them you get it from the moment they first interact with your website. They need to know you are talking to them.
If I had a 2 headed horse that refused to sleep and I came across a website that said “we guarantee to get your 2 headed horse to sleep within 7 days, or you can have a refund” I’m definitely going to stop and read. If I then see that the same website says “if you have a regular horse, please refer to these other sites that can help with your usual cases” I’m going to feel super confident that this site is an expert on 2 headed sleepless horses.
I have a 2 headed sleepless horse. They specialise in getting 2 headed horses to sleep. They are such an expert, they don’t even have time for regular horses.
Very good chance that I’m going to call them and pretty much buy right away.
But if the website says “we help horses and other animals sleep” I might scroll for a bit, but I’m probably going to be thinking “yeah but they won’t understand my 2 headed horse, no one does”. I then see a testimonial about a sleeping hamster and a sleeping goose. I click away. Who cares.
There is a big difference. ICPs are hyper specific. Their problems are specific. Their fears are specific. The more you can get deep into this, the more you will have a product that people buy upon contact.
Let’s get away from 2 headed sleepless horses. That was either a weird segway or an excellent example. You decide.
Show relevant, detailed social proof:
The ideal customer profile wants to see that other people like them that are happy. Not people that are somewhat like them, but people that are exactly like them. They want to know that another person who used to have their same problem, no longer has it. Do this in as many ways as you can. Be sure to use the detailed, full version of a customer’s review. It’s the best possible messaging that you could never write yourself. Keep it raw, keep it detailed, keep it relevant.
(sorry, its back…)
“My 2 headed horse Bastion used to be so tired all the time. I tried everything and he just never slept. Literally 7 days into this product, Bastion slept through the night and it’s probably the best thing that happened all year! I wouldn’t risk going back to what I used to do, he’s on this product for life now. My wife told me it costs too much to use this product forever and we should reconsider if we need such a big family (considering we have other animals already). I ran the numbers and she was right. It’s much more affordable now she doesn’t live here with me and Bastion” (insert selfie with 1 happy guy and a 2 headed sleeping horse)
These are the kind of weirdly specific raw messages are what you want.
(seriously though, I didn’t think we’d end up on the horse thing again)
Reduce friction as much as possible:
Customers don’t have the same level of patience they used to.
Don’t make them jump through a bunch of hoops to signup. Don’t hide your pricing. Don’t be weird about booking sales calls.
Seriously, the tolerance is at an all time low and it’s a fast way to undo all your good work. Think “smooth” for everything you do. In reality, you probably have a ton of friction points. Just be aware of them and try to improve them over time. Data really helps, collect as much of it as possible and continually iterate.
Why Your ICP Should Be Niche (and Your Non-ICP Should Be Broad)
The best SaaS companies (IMO) focus on the 1% that love them and ignore the 99% that don’t.
Your goal isn’t to appeal to everyone—it’s to win over the right few customers and let everyone else self-select out. Your ideal customer profile, if captured, will stay. This is why we do what we do in SaaS – to retain. Keep this in focus.
Everything gets easier when you are niche. Literally, everything.
Be sure to continually refine and improve your Ideal Customer Profile. It’s not a static thing. It will evolve in small, unique ways. Re-evaluate periodically by looking at your data, the edge churn cases that sit between ICP and non-ICP, the questions customer service gets, the reviews and churn feedback you get. Everything.
Even more important – keep talking to your top spending ICPs. Let them tell you how they get value from your product and how they could get more.
Ideal Customer Profile Conclusion: Be Ruthless About Who You Serve
SaaS success isn’t just about getting more customers—it’s about getting the right customers. The right ones will pay, stay and refer others. Its an incredible place to be.
If you’ve never mapped ICP vs non-ICP vs Anti-ICP, give it a try. You might be surprised by the findings. It can be eye opening at times.
The more focused you are on your Ideal Customer Profile, the easier your growth becomes. CAC reduces, LTV improves, churn reduces, satisfaction improves… and so on.
Get super clear on 2 things:
- Who you really, really want.
- Who you really, really don’t.
Then, reject as needed. Make space for the good ones.
Final Thought
If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll struggle to grow. But if you focus on the 1% that truly love your product, you’ll build a business that scales much faster.
Thats what really matters.
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