Free template · ICP
ICP worksheet: an ideal customer profile template for B2B SaaS
What it is: an ICP worksheet turns your best customers into a written ideal customer profile — the company, the trigger that puts them in-market, the job and pain, who buys versus who uses, and who to disqualify. Use it before building a prospect list, writing outbound, or choosing which segment to focus on first.
What's in the worksheet
Best 3 customers: evidence columns and the pattern they share.
Firmographics: the company, only as far as the evidence goes.
Trigger events: signals that a company is in-market now.
The job and the pain: in their words, with the workaround's cost.
Who buys vs who uses: budget owner, champion, user, blocker.
Budget: which budget line pays, and what you're compared to.
Disqualifiers: the anti-ICP, with a first-call question for each.
Where they hang out, a beachhead scoring rubric and a one-paragraph ICP.
How to fill it in
- Start from evidence, not imagination. Pull the three customers who signed fastest, stayed longest and got the most value — April Dunford's best-fit customers. Pre-revenue? Use the three prospects with the strongest signal: money or time already spent on a workaround.
- Fill in the evidence columns, then look across. Whatever all three share is your segment. Push past industry and size to the trigger: what was true about their situation that made them buy fast?
- Complete firmographics and triggers from the pattern. Only write what the evidence shows. A blank cell is more useful than a guess.
- Separate who buys from who uses. Name the budget owner, the champion, the daily user and anyone who can block the deal. Winning by Design defines both the ideal company and its personas — user and buyer.
- Write your disqualifiers. Who looks like a fit but churns fast or never closes? Turn each one into a question for the first call.
- Score your candidate segments with the rubric and pick one beachhead to focus on this quarter.
- Write the ICP and test it. Label it a hypothesis (under 10 customers) or evidence-based (10+). Then interview 5 people with that exact profile: if the same pain comes up in all 5, build around it.
Mazo's rule of thumb: no workaround and no money spent on the problem today usually means they're not your ICP, however well they fit on paper. Existing spend — a spreadsheet someone maintains, a hired person, a tool they pay for — is the strongest buying signal there is, as Cindy Alvarez points out in Lean Customer Development.
A filled-in example
Here's the worksheet completed for a made-up company with 12 customers, so you can see how three customers turn into a profile you can build a list from.
Fictional example
Paperkite is a fictional B2B SaaS company: software that collects year-end documents from clients for accounting firms, at €500 a month per firm. The company, its customers and every number below are invented and deliberately round.
A. Best 3 customers
| Question | Customer A | Customer B | Customer C | Pattern |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company type and size | Accounting firm, 18 staff | Accounting firm, 25 staff | Accounting firm, 12 staff | Accounting firms, 10–30 staff |
| What happened just before they bought | Admin resigned mid busy season | Late filings last season | New partner wanted to end weekend work | A busy season that went badly |
| How they found Paperkite | Intro from a customer | Post in an owners' community | Intro from a customer | Intros and one community |
| Days from first call to paying | 9 | 14 | 6 | Under 2 weeks |
| Who signed | Managing partner | Managing partner | Managing partner | The managing partner signs |
| Who uses it every week | The admin | Two admins | Office manager | An admin role exists |
| What they used before, and its cost | Email and a spreadsheet; about a day a week of admin time in busy season | Portal in their practice software, plus phone calls | Email and a spreadsheet; partners chasing at weekends | A manual workaround that costs staff time |
| The job, in their words | Get documents in without chasing | Stop filing late | Stop chasing at weekends | Documents in before the deadline, without chasing |
| Result so far | Still paying | Still paying; added a second office | Still paying | All retained; one expanded |
B–F. Profile
| Firmographics | Accounting firms doing personal and small-business tax work; 10–30 staff; Ireland to start (one language, one tax calendar); hundreds of individual clients each year-end; uses a practice-management suite; at least one dedicated admin |
|---|---|
| Trigger events | A busy season that ran late (ask on call one) · a job posting for an admin or practice assistant · a new partner joining or a merger (LinkedIn announcements) · a move to new practice software |
| The job | Get from "waiting on hundreds of clients" to "every document in" without an admin chasing by phone |
| The pain, in their words | Chasing the same clients three times for the same bank statement |
| Workaround and its cost | Email and a spreadsheet: about one admin day a week in busy season, plus partners' weekends near the deadline |
| Stakes if unsolved | Late filings, unhappy clients, partners working weekends |
| Budget | The software budget that already pays for the practice suite; owned by the managing partner; compared with the cost of a temporary admin for the season |
E. Who buys vs who uses
| Role | Job title | Measured on | Frustration | Dream outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Budget owner | Managing partner | Fees billed, deadlines met | Weekend work at every deadline | A busy season without the scramble |
| Champion | Senior accountant | Billable work completed | Chasing eats time meant for returns | Preparing returns, not chasing paperwork |
| Daily user | Admin or practice assistant | Documents collected on time | Chasing the same clients repeatedly | A list that updates itself |
| Can block the deal | IT contractor or data protection lead | Client data kept safe | New tools holding client data | A clear answer on where data is stored |
G–H. Disqualifiers and where they hang out
| Looks like a fit, but… | Why it fails | Question for call one |
|---|---|---|
| One-person practices | Too few clients to feel the pain; churn after one season | "How many clients do you collect documents from each year?" |
| Firms over 100 staff | Want it inside their existing suite; approvals take months | "Who else signs off on new software that holds client data?" |
| Firms whose clients have in-house finance teams | Documents arrive without chasing | "How many clients did you chase more than twice last season?" |
Where they hang out: the owners' community most customers came from; regional meetups for practice owners; LinkedIn, where partners comment on posts about running a practice. Verified by asking every customer where they last went for advice.
I. Beachhead scoring
| Candidate segment | Pain & spend | Evidence | Reachable | Can pay | Visible trigger | Fast to close | Total /12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accounting firms, 10–30 staff (chosen) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Bookkeeping firms, 5–20 staff | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 8 |
| Accounting firms, 100+ staff | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| One-person practices | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | Out (no pain) |
J. The ICP
Our ICP is accounting firms with 10–30 staff and a dedicated admin, right after a busy season that ran late. The managing partner buys Paperkite so the admin can get every client's documents in before the deadline without chasing, instead of email and a spreadsheet. We walk away from one-person practices and firms over 100 staff.
Status: evidence-based (12 customers). Next test: 5 interviews with matching firms from the owners' community; pass if the same pain comes up in all 5.
ICP worksheet
Blank ideal customer profile template with beachhead scoring rubric
Company: name · Date: date · Paying customers today: count · Status: hypothesis / evidence-based
A. Best 3 customers: the evidence
The three who signed fastest, stayed longest and got the most value. Pre-revenue: the three prospects who already spend money or time on a workaround.
| Question | Customer 1 | Customer 2 | Customer 3 | Pattern: what all 3 share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company type and size | ||||
| What happened just before they bought | ||||
| How they found you | ||||
| Days from first conversation to paying | ||||
| Who signed / who pays | ||||
| Who uses it every week | ||||
| What they used before, and what it cost them | ||||
| The job they hired you for, in their words | ||||
| Result so far: still paying? expanded? |
B. Firmographics
| Industry or niche | |
|---|---|
| Company size | staff, or another count that matters |
| Revenue or funding stage | only if it changes whether they buy |
| Geography and language | |
| Business model | who their customers are |
| Tools or stack that must be present | |
| Team structure | a role that must exist |
C. Trigger events
Observable signals that a company is in-market now: funding, a new leadership hire, a job posting that matches your use case, a stack change, a deadline, a regulation.
| Trigger | Where you'd see it | How quickly to act |
|---|---|---|
D. The job and the pain
| The job | get from X to Y without Z |
|---|---|
| The pain, in their words | quote what customers actually said |
| Current workaround and what it costs | time, money, risk |
| What happens if it isn't solved | the stakes |
| How often the pain shows up | daily, monthly, once a year |
E. Who buys vs who uses
| Role | Job title | What they're measured on | Frustrations | Dream outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Budget owner (signs) | ||||
| Champion (pushes it internally) | ||||
| Daily user | ||||
| Can block the deal (IT, security, finance, legal) |
F. Budget
| Budget line it comes from | does that line already exist? |
|---|---|
| Who owns that budget | |
| What they compare your price to | the cost of the workaround or alternative |
| Approvals needed at your price |
G. Disqualifiers: your anti-ICP
Bad-fit customers churn fast, and the same profile churns again and again. Lincoln Murphy's fix: tighten the ICP and add disqualification questions to the sales process.
| Looks like a fit, but… | Why it failschurns, never closes, costs too much to serve | Question to ask on call one |
|---|---|---|
H. Where they hang out
| Type of place | Specific name | How you'll verify they're really there |
|---|---|---|
| Communities | ||
| Events | ||
| Newsletters, podcasts, people they follow | ||
| Words they search for |
I. Beachhead scoring rubric
Score each candidate segment 0, 1 or 2 per column. A segment that scores 0 on pain and spend is out, whatever its total. Highest total wins; if two tie, pick the one with more evidence.
| Candidate segment | Pain & spend | Evidence | Reachable | Can pay | Visible trigger | Fast to close | Total /12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pain & spend | 0 = no workaround or spend · 1 = a workaround, no spend · 2 = money or a person already on it |
|---|---|
| Evidence | 0 = a guess · 1 = interviews where the pain repeats · 2 = paying customers who signed fast and stayed |
| Reachable | 0 = can't name them · 1 = can name 50 · 2 = can name hundreds and reach them through one channel you can run |
| Can pay | 0 = your price is above their budget · 1 = needs approval above the user · 2 = the budget owner can say yes |
| Visible trigger | 0 = none · 1 = only by asking · 2 = a public signal such as job posts, funding or deadlines |
| Fast to close | 0 = months, with procurement · 1 = weeks · 2 = days |
J. Your ICP in one paragraph
Our ICP is company type and size that situation or trigger. The budget owner buys it so the daily user can job, instead of current workaround. We walk away from disqualifiers.
| Status | hypothesis (under 10 customers) or evidence-based (10+) |
|---|---|
| Next test | 5 interviews with this exact profile, by (date) |
| Pass line | the same pain comes up in all 5 |
ICP worksheet · Free template by Mazo · getmazo.com/templates/icp-worksheet
Common ICP mistakes
- Describing who could buy, not who buys fastest. "B2B companies with 10–200 employees" fits thousands of companies that will never need you.
- Inventing the ICP from the product. Derive it from the customers who bought fastest and stayed longest — or treat it as a hypothesis until you have 10.
- No trigger. Without a trigger you know who to sell to, but not who to call this week.
- Merging buyer and user. A pitch aimed at the daily user rarely convinces the person who owns the budget.
- No anti-ICP. If you never say who you don't sell to, bad-fit customers fill your pipeline and your churn.
- Several ICPs at once. Three segments means three lists, three messages and three sets of feature requests — and no segment gets enough attention to work.
- Asking about the future in interviews. "Would you use this?" gets polite yeses. Ask about the last time they dealt with the problem.
Mazo's rule of thumb: five interviews with one profile that surface the same pain is signal; fifteen interviews across scattered profiles is noise. If the pain doesn't repeat, tighten the profile before you interview anyone else.
Or let Mazo turn your ICP into your first customers
The free first 10 customers plan takes who you sell to and the reach you already have, and returns one channel, your first 50 names, a first message and a week-by-week plan. Not sure the ICP is your weak spot? Take the free GTM scorecard first.
Who wrote this
Madalena Rugeroni built Mazo. She's an ex-Googler, a startup advisor and investor, and runs a portfolio of internet companies. Before that, as Head of Growth at Amplemarket, she scaled a B2B SaaS to $10M ARR. LinkedIn
FAQ
What is an ideal customer profile (ICP) in B2B SaaS?
A description of the type of company that gets value from your product fastest and stays: its firmographics, the situation or trigger that puts it in-market, the job it needs done, and the people who buy and use the product — plus the companies you deliberately don't sell to.
How many ICPs should an early-stage startup have?
One to focus on at a time. Before €1M ARR, chasing several segments splits your prospect list, your message and your roadmap. Score the candidates, pick one beachhead, and revisit the choice each quarter with new evidence.
How do I define an ICP with no customers?
Treat it as a hypothesis. Start with prospects who already spend money or time on a workaround, interview 5 people who share one profile about past behaviour rather than future intent (Cindy Alvarez's rule), and change the profile if the pain doesn't repeat.
What's the difference between an ICP and a buyer persona?
The ICP describes the company and its situation; personas describe the people inside it — the budget owner, the champion and the daily user. Winning by Design defines both: the ideal company, and the ideal personas for user and buyer.
Build your go-to-market around the right customer
Mazo derives your ICP from your real customers and conversations, then builds the list, messages and 90-day plan around it — and runs it with you every week. €99 a month, 14 days free.
Start 14-day free trial Not ready? Plan your first 10 customers free, no account needed →Sources and further reading. April Dunford (Obviously Awesome, best-fit customers), Cindy Alvarez (Lean Customer Development), Winning by Design (ideal company and personas, trigger events, anti-ICP) and Lincoln Murphy (bad-fit churn). These are published methodologies credited to their authors; Mazo is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Paperkite is a fictional company and its customers and numbers are invented for illustration.