Misaligned product demand is detrimental

For an early-stage startup, it’s flattering to encounter demand outside of your established ICP. However, this demand will inevitably cause you to lose focus.

When you encounter demand outside of your ICP, you need to either:

• Validate and pivot into the new customer segment
• Ignore the new customer segment and move on

Doing this requires a lot of discipline and may mean leaving money on the table, but it’s necessary for survival: you can’t be everything to everyone.

To make sure you do this consistently, you’ll want to build it into your principles when you Design an operating cadence.

References

• [[lessons-learned-from-a-startup-that-didnt-make-it|Lessons Learned From a Startup That Didn’t Make It]]