Product StrategyEmerging Pattern

Choose a hard version of your problem to pressure-test your model and avoid over-fitting

Intentionally target a diverse segment early to stress-test your product against varied requirements. This prevents building a solution that only works for one specific use case and validates broader applicability.

When to use

When defining initial ICP for a product that could serve customers with varying complexity levels

Don't do this

Picking the easiest customer segment first and building a product so tailored to them that it cannot expand

2 Founders Who Did This

1
Pilotby Waseem Daher

Chose startups as ICP knowing a 2-person garage startup has dramatically different accounting needs than a 300-person company with VP of Finance

Result:Hard mode pressure-tested the model and prevented over-fitting on one particular use case
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2
Personaby Rick Song

Deliberately refused to take two customers with the same use case, collecting maximally different verticals (e-commerce, fraud, marketplace, crypto, fintech) to stress-test whether horizontal identity platform was viable

Result:Validated platform approach within 15-20 customers across diverse industries; proved one-size-fits-all assumption was wrong while horizontal platform was viable
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