ICP is Everything

Messaging to everyone converts no one. In this session, Toshi Jones breaks down why so many Ideal Customer Profiles across startups and the Fortune 500 are wrong, stale, or missing altogether, and why that is even more dangerous in an AI-driven world.
An ICP is not a demographic, a persona, or a slide in a brand deck. It is a single, high-level statement about the customer who feels the most urgent, hair-on-fire version of the problem you solve. When that filter is weak or wrong, PRDs, personas, messaging, sales conversations, and roadmaps all drift off course.
We will dig into:
✨ The most common ICP mistakes: going too broad, confusing TAM with “who buys first,” centering who you wish you served instead of who you actually win with, and letting noisy non-buyers sway the roadmap
✨ How to separate your ICP from personas and from the economic buyer, so you stop writing for the wrong decision-maker or relying on “friends of the board” for product direction
✨ How to treat ICP as a living commercial decision, using AI and real market signals to adjust faster as usage patterns, customer pain, and competitive pressure shift
If your “ICP” lives in a dusty brand book full of vague stats and vibes, this session will help you rethink it as the sharpest decision filter your product, marketing, and sales teams have.