Problem and market understanding

Phase 1 creates reliable clarity about which problem is relevant enough, for whom and in which context, to justify a product and an offer at all later on. It is purely a phase of insight and orientation, and expressly not a sales phase.

It is understood which problem is truly relevant for whom, still without a solution and without sales assumptions. The focus is on insight, not implementation. The phase is driven by insight rather than by solutions, looks outwards to the market and customers rather than inwards, and it confirms or rejects hypotheses.

With a new idea, a new line of business or a new offer initiative, and likewise with a strategic realignment or with growth into new target segments.

Phase 1 is driven by product management, by founders or by strategy. Sales, Business Development and Marketing provide input but do not drive the phase: roles with a sales target are advisory here. Executive management is informed.

Realistic in this phase are sharpened hypotheses and clearly delimited target markets, not a pipeline or a forecast.

The starting point is assumptions from strategy and experience, existing customer contacts and observation of the market and competitors. This is followed by qualitative conversations with potential customers (discovery interviews), segmentation by industry, role and context, and condensation into problem clusters and patterns. At the end comes the distinction between relevant and irrelevant problems.

This requires interview guides and clean documentation, but no marketing or sales tooling yet.

There have been enough qualified discovery conversations to recognise patterns. The same pain points come up repeatedly. And the ICP is sharply defined: it states just as clearly who does not belong.

“If we have not properly understood the problem, any further discussion is premature.”

As long as the understanding of the problem is not complete, no offer is created yet. There is no marketing material, no active selling and no turnover expectation. Insight comes before speed.

The Ideal Customer Profile describes the clearly delimited group of target customers for whom a product or offer is demonstrably relevant, deliverable and commercially sensible. It is not a marketing target group and not a wish list, but a basis for decisions in product, Marketing, Sales Development and Sales.

Without a clear ICP, any qualification is arbitrary.

Typical dimensions are industry or market segment, company size and maturity, the roles in the buying centre, the typical starting situation, technical, organisational or regulatory conditions, and exclusion criteria. Not all dimensions need to be equally pronounced. What matters is how sharply the profile discriminates.

The ICP is neither a broad persona nor a turnover target nor a guarantee of willingness to buy. Nor is it final: it is sharpened continuously, above all through demand validation (phase 4) and through feedback (phase 9).

The ICP answers the question: “For whom does this offer make sense, and for whom deliberately not?”

Phase 2 begins when a validated problem statement and a clear ICP are in place. Without a sound understanding of the problem, product definition does not start.