Nick Mehta

Find the Sweet Spot Between Overly Broad and Narrow ICP

One of the Goldilocks problems in B2B startups is defining who you are selling to. On one extreme is the entrepreneur that says "we sell to everyone." That could be every company, every role or both. The challenge is how do you build a great product for "everyone?" How do you market to "everyone?" How do you sell to "everyone?" When I hear the "everyone" TAM, the only way it gets worse is when it's followed by "actually, our target is the CEO." That's a tough Ideal Customer Profile. But the other end of the Goldilocks problem is making the target market too narrow, such that you get stuck. Eventually every company hits a TAM wall, but you want to push that off as much as possible. An ideal middle state which is easier said than done is to have a very specific ICP that naturally either grows or leads to other related ICPs. The TAM of everyone and the TAM of 1 are both problematic - finding the sweet spot in between is the art.