Maja Voje on defining an effective ICP, taking care of early customers, and nailing your GTM strategy
Maja Voje on defining an effective ICP, taking care of early customers, and nailing your GTM strategy
Product State Q&A
Maja Voje is the Founder of Growth Lab and the author of ‘Go-To-Market Strategist’. She was formerly the CMO at OriginTrail, and Head of Growth at Dext. She previously held roles at Rocket Internet and Google, and has advised top brands like Bayer.
Website / LinkedIn
Product State readers: As a token of appreciation, read to the end for a 30% off discount on Maja’s GTM Strategist eBook bundles.EC: How do you define an effective ICP, and how does it differ from an early customer base?
MV: You do not invent your ICP. You reverse-engineer it from your traction.
Companies often hire expensive consultants to run workshops on the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) before the company gains any traction. That is a brainstorming exercise — at best.
“Hands from Germany who drives Volkswagen and leads accounting at a Mittelstand company, and likes skiing” is probably not your best bet for aligning your go-to-market (GTM) efforts. Unless you sell skis.
To make decisions confidently, you need evidence — Your data, from which you reverse-engineer ICP, backed by empirical data. Your ICP will require proof (traction, references, case studies) to trust you with their business. The adoption looks like this. You build your way up to ICP with early users and customers.
Remember, Users ≠ Customer. Users use the product, and the customer pays for it.
EC: How ‘s does ICP differ from early customers, and what does that mean for GTM?
MV: What likely captures a company’s initial attention is ECP. ECP = Early Customer Profile. Before there is an ideal, there is an early — customer.
Unlike ICP, the ECP is more open to risks and takes pride in being an early adopter (channeling ‘Crossing the Chasm’ by Geoffrey Moore) with one crucial caveat:
ECP pays for the product. It is a customer, not merely a user.
Why is this important? If you are bootstrapping, you are wasting words here. Suppose you are not pressured to ‘make it or break it’ in the next 3-6 months. In that case, you might still be interested in understanding the differentiation between converting users and those who keep using the product for free to inform your marketing and sales efforts.
To get to the nitty-gritty of the ECP, those customers are willing to give you a chance before you are even solid on your product market bit. They fit the description of the beachhead segment. That’s the first segment that you choose to gain traction required to move upmarket.
Four critical beachhead segment criteria that are relevant in the go-to-market stage are:
Adequate willingness to pay - not only do they say they love it, but they pay for it
Burning pain point - closer to shutting up and taking my money - not maybe I will do it next November.
Proximity - you have a fair fighting chance to acquire them - acquisition should not be complicated at this point
Willingness to recommend - ECP should be a proxy of ICP. The reference you gain early on should serve as relevant evidence and a lever to move up the market. The overlap between the first segment and the next adjacent segment is crucial.
Your early customer took a chance on you. They are often change-makers in their organizations (B2B) who will sell you internally, and sometimes, they will even be willing to bypass some rules or protocols to get you in. Once the implementation succeeds, they will happily give you a testimonial, share the stage with you, and recommend your solution to their peers.
If they are willing to take a chance on you — what can you do for them?
I believe that your job is to get them promoted 🤠, but let’s start with those jobs to be done:
You must educate them and make them ‘look cool and smart’ — so that they choose you.
Make their job easy - support them with additional materials and support to empower them.
Celebrate their success — make them feel seen, heard, and appreciated.
Develop a personal relationship with them — know their names and spend one on one time with them.
EC: How do you apply this to a GTM strategy when looking for P/M Fit?
MV: As the economic climate changes, the concept of ECP gains recognition since more clients, investors, and entrepreneurs require more substantial evidence of product market fit before shaking hands with you.
I like Brian Balfour’s definition of p/m fit, which includes four elements: Product, Customer, Segment, and Business Model. It makes so much sense for the go-to-market stage.
Beyond the product have to deliver value to the customer, it’s mission critical to be able to capture some of this value added to create a foundation of a sustainable business model — and build at least one predictable and scalable GTM Motion (combination of channels how you get customers), which is a holy grail of the stage.
I also believe your product market fit is not one magic moment. It is a cycle as defined by Carlos Eduardo Espinal.
Most companies take 5-7 spins in 6-12 months to capture early signals of Product-Market fit. For this reason, ICP is a dynamic concept not some ‘set it and forget it’ exercise.
Now, it’s important to remember that your GTM strategy is more than your target market or a GTM motion. A GTM strategy is holistic, it’s more than a launch or a Marketing/Sales effort.
The key components of a legit GTM strategy are…
Objective: Define what you aim to achieve.
Market: Generate market intelligence.
Target Audience Selection: Choose your niche.
Pricing Strategy: Capture the value added.
Product Development: It goes beyond launch.
Positioning and Messaging: Differentiate.
GTM Motion: Get traction.
Implementation Plan: Team, resources, tools, and timelines
A winning GTM strategy typically has these characteristics:
A dynamic asset that evolves with new insights.
Proprietary and not a copy of past success stories.
Leverages your strengths and competitors' weaknesses.
Anchored around a clear objective for the next 3-18 months.
Actionable and practical, not just a document for stakeholders.
Once you have a solid understanding of ECP, ICP, P/M Fit, and traction — you need to decide when and where to enter new markets, how to position yourself, and how to grow and expand.
A Market Problem Map (check out my template on Miro here) can be a helpful tool for this. Companies leverage them to make sense of the market, its participants and their needs, and formulate a plan of attack. They also use them for roadmapping, aligning the team, introspection, and all the way to extracting insights from customer interviews.
“You do not invent your ICP. You reverse-engineer it from your traction.”
— Maja Voje
ps. Use code PRODUCTSTATE30 for a 30% discount to the GTM Strategist e-book bundle and to the GTM Strategist e-book + checklist combo at https://gtmstrategist.com/#checkout