Ideal Customer Profile
What is an ideal customer profile?
An ideal customer profile defines the attributes and characteristics of your target customer or user. It specifies who you are designing your product for—including who you are choosing to serve and who you are leaving out, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
For early-stage startups without customers yet, the ideal customer profile describes people who match the target audience you need to interview. It becomes your guide for finding the right people to learn from during discovery.
Why does your ideal customer profile reveal assumptions?
When you define your ideal customer profile, you're making assumptions about your target customer. What attributes do you prescribe to them? What behaviors or needs do you assume they have? These assumptions need to surface and be tested.
Equally important is understanding who you're excluding. Every choice about your ideal customer naturally leaves some people out. Sometimes this is intentional—you're focusing on a specific segment. Other times it's unintentional—you haven't considered how your definition might exclude certain groups. Both types of exclusion carry ethical implications that teams should examine.
How do teams use ideal customer profiles?
The ideal customer profile serves multiple purposes in product discovery. When you're at an early stage without customers or prospects, it guides your recruiting—helping you find the right people to interview to validate your assumptions.
As part of assumption identification, walking through your ideal customer profile helps generate the assumptions your product decisions depend upon. By enumerating the characteristics and attributes you're assuming, you create a list of beliefs to test. This practice helps teams move from implicit assumptions to explicit hypotheses they can validate through research.
Learn more:
- Customer Interviews: How to Recruit, What to Ask, and How to Synthesize What You Learn
- Evaluating Solutions: The 5 Types of Assumptions that Underlie Our Ideas
- Assumption Testing: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started
Related terms:
- Assumption
- Assumption Testing
- Customer Interview
- Ethical Assumptions
Last Updated: October 25, 2025