Your ICP is not a persona

A persona is a humanized sketch — "Marketing Mary, 38, drinks oat milk." Useful for empathy. Useless for targeting.

An ICP is an account-level filter. Industry, size, tech stack, trigger event, buying authority. It tells you which companies to chase, not which person to picture.

How to write an ICP that actually filters

A good ICP has three layers:

• Firmographics — industry, employee count, revenue band, geo.
• Technographics — what they already run that signals fit (e.g. "uses Snowflake + Looker").
• Trigger — what just happened that creates urgency (Series B, new CRO, security incident).

If two of three are missing on a lead, it is not ICP. Put it in the slow lane.

The test

Give your ICP to an SDR. Can they look at a domain in 60 seconds and say yes or no with confidence? If not, you have a wish list — not an ICP.