icp-definitionlisted

# ICP Definition Most outbound fails before a single email is sent, because the list was built from a description too vague to filter on. "B2B SaaS companies" is not an ICP. It's a category. A usable ICP is one a stranger could take, go to the web, and come back with the same 200 companies you would have picked. If two people working from your ICP would build different lists, it isn't finished. ## Start from customers, not from ambition The ICP is a description of who already buys and gets value, not who you'd like to sell to. Derive it from evidence: - **Your best 10 to 20 customers.** Best by retention and expansion, not by contract size. A large customer who churned at month four is not a template. - **Your fastest closes.** Short cycles mean the value was obvious, which means the fit was real. - **Your worst churn.** The pattern in who leaves is usually clearer than the pattern in who stays, and it becomes the disqualifier list. - **Deals you lost on fit** rather than on price or timing. If there are no customers yet, the ICP is a hypothesis. Say so, write it as one, and design the first campaign to test it rather than to scale it. ## The five layers Each layer has to be observable from outside the company. If you can't determine it from a website, a profile or a public source, it can't go in the filter — it's a qualification question for the call. **1. Firmographics.** Industry, employee count, revenue or funding stage, geography, business model. The floor, not