Have you ever been reached by a customer whose profile you weren't expecting?

Question

When I started working on my product, I was quick to determine my ICP: medium to large, digitally-heavy companies that struggle with hiring skills (my product is a skill management system and I figured these companies lacked the ability to nurture skills internally).

However, as I interviewed users, I quickly found myself in a catch-22 situation: my most likely customers' requirements (SSO, white label, soc2, and pentest certifications, etc) would likely bankrupt me before I could have any deal closed.

Lately, however, I've been approached by companies that didn't fit my ICP at all: universities and consulting firms. The former would like to use the tool to map the expertise of its staff, while the latter wants to use it to solve allocation issues I wasn't even aware of!

While I don't feel my product is the right one for universities, the idea of pivoting the tool to attract consulting firms appeals to me. The problem they face seems more recurring and many don't have all the requirements an Enterprise would have. Customer profiles are important, but they are not as important as getting live.

Do you have any stories of a customer coming from an unlikely place? What did you do?

Sriram Ramakrishnan · Accepted Answer

@fernando_cordeiro2 It was a consumer checking/brokerage product that was designed for millennials with too much idle cash in their checking accounts

Sriram Ramakrishnan · Answer

Yes, this happened to me when building our last consumer product. If anything this experience is a lesson learned that as builders many times we may have a hypothesis on what our Ideal Customer Profiles are but customers ultimately know what they want. It's important to build around that and consider the pivot in my opinion.

Fernando Cordeiro · Answer

@sreezy3000 What was the product/ customer, if you don't mind me asking?

Have you ever been reached by a customer whose profile you weren't expecting?

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