Introducing the Fletch ICP Scorecard.

After working with nearly 400 startups, we’ve observed something interesting about founders planning their go-to-market.

They actually do a decent job of segmenting their potential markets…

…but they have a really hard time MAKING A DECISION of which segment to prioritize.

We hear the fear in their voice:

“How do I know my choice will work?”

“What if I make the wrong decision?”

Here’s the thing…

…you’ll never know for sure that you are making the right choice or that things will work. 

It’s this unknown, this risk, that makes entrepreneurship so hard.  

If we had all the answers beforehand, then everyone would be a founder. 

We like to describe positioning decisions as a “strategic bets.” — specifically because the word “bet” implies there is risk. 

Now, this doesn’t mean that you should randomly pick a market and a positioning strategy. 

It should be an informed decision rooted in your understanding of the risk vs. opportunity. 

That’s why we created this ICP scorecard — to help founders understand the bet they are making. 

Here are the key criteria we evaluate when helping founders make this choice:

*In order to use this scorecard, you must have workflow-based (use case) segments already created, which details what the audience is trying to do, how they are doing it today, and what problems they are running into. 

The example shown in the image is for Notion.  Take note that even for a company like Notion that has a kick-ass product, their differentiation to different segments isn’t always “kick-ass”.  They too need to make strategic bets on how they approach growth. 

🚩 Problem Severity

Of all the criteria, this may be the most important one. 

It asks the question: “Is there a compelling reason to buy?”

(ie how easy will it be to get them to switch from their current alternative?)

If this score is weak, it’s a signal that the market for your product may not exist or that you will need to invest a lot of time and energy educating the audience to change their behavior — this is really difficult to do. 

🚩 Differentiation

The question here is:  “Are we significantly better than the alternative(s)”?

A strong positioning strategy should aim to frame the product or business model to be orders of magnitude better than the competition — as a way to dominate the market. 

Peter Thiel describes this as the “monopolistic advantage”.

If this score is weak, it usually means a startup has to do one of two things:

1. Narrow their segmentation further until they have an advantage.
2. Change the product or business model to better solve the problem. 

And it’s okay to not have a 10x advantage — just be aware that when you don’t have this advantage, your growth will likely be more linear, instead of hyperbolic. 

🚩 Access

For a given segment, can you easily and consistently get in front of them?

If you have a 10x product that solves a big important problem BUT CANNOT get in contact with the people who have the problem…

…then it’s the same as if you have a bad product that solves an unimportant problem. 

Another way to think about “access” is to ask yourself how confident you are in your ability to execute your go-to-market (ie. hit your numbers). 

🚩 Size

This is where a lot of founders focus, but it’s actually the least important of the 4 criteria. 

We’re not evaluating whether your TAM is big enough to become a unicorn.

Instead, we’re evaluating whether this segment will support your short term revenue goals (and burn). 

For most early stage companies, the name of the game is NOT to maximize revenue, it’s to maximize momentum. (ie. growth)

———

There are more things to consider when prioritizing a market segment, but we’ve found these 4 to be especially helpful when making these strategic bets. 

Remember, the whole point of this exercise is to help you make a choice of where to focus.

If you never make this strategic bet, you’re just going to be treading water with your GTM.