Why Your Ideal Customer Profile Matters

Cole Abbott (00:00:00 -> 00:00:03)

Hello there. How are you? I am good. How are you?

Mark Abbott (00:00:03 -> 00:00:04)

I'm doing great, thank you.

Cole Abbott (00:00:06 -> 00:00:08)

Are you excited? I am. To talk about I is

Mark Abbott (00:00:08 -> 00:00:08)

One of my favorite topics.

Cole Abbott (00:00:09 -> 00:00:13)

Ideal customer. Yeah. Yeah. So you say it's your favorite?

Mark Abbott (00:00:14 -> 00:00:15)

I say it's one of my

Cole Abbott (00:00:15 -> 00:00:16)

Uhhuh <affirmative> because

Mark Abbott (00:00:16 -> 00:00:58)

I think it's so bloody important. Yeah, right. I mean, that's what your business is all about. It's about serving a human. And like, if you're not serving someone you genuinely care about, it's kind of hard to be passionate about the work you're doing. So I think it's pretty important that people figure out who the heck they're serving and get, you know, very sort of clear on it. We've talked about this a bunch, you know, over the, I don't know how many episodes we've done now, but over, you know, we've probably talked about, you know, ICP and Ideal Customer Profile. Um, I don't know, six to 12 times I think already. But now we're just gonna focus on that for this particular episode. So, yeah, I'm looking forward

Cole Abbott (00:00:58 -> 00:01:10)

To it. Yeah, I think Vision and Ideal customer are probably the ones that we sort of refer to the most. Yeah. Yeah. And the other of the other core competencies, structure comes

Mark Abbott (00:01:10 -> 00:01:11)

A lot

Cole Abbott (00:01:11 -> 00:01:20)

In structure. Yeah. I'd probably go vision structure, ideal customers pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and then, you know, people

Mark Abbott (00:01:21 -> 00:01:22)

Data, lots of data,

Cole Abbott (00:01:22 -> 00:01:26)

Data. There's that middle tier, and then there's Yeah. Stuff at the bottom. But it's all important. It's all

Mark Abbott (00:01:26 -> 00:01:27)

Important.

Cole Abbott (00:01:27 -> 00:01:51)

Yeah. So why, yeah. Obviously it's important, but why do you, obviously there's things that are important and then there's things that you're passionate about and there's something that's Right. Separate there. Yeah. So what is it about the ideal customer knowing who you're serving, and having a very clear idea and concept for who that is that makes you, is, uh, is fun for you?

Mark Abbott (00:01:52 -> 00:03:54)

Well, I think it's, we've talked about this before, right? I, I think the ideal customer profile, the definition of your ideal customer should be part of the soul of your company. Your company exists, right? To serve someone. And the best companies, I think, are in the infinite game of serving that someone, right? Um, I think the best companies are the ones that are playing an infinite game with, and part of the infinite game, we call those forever agreements, right? There's a forever agreement around the nature of your culture. There's a forever agreement around who you're serving, your ideal customer, right? There's nature of a forever agreement around how you make life better, right? And then I think the forever agreement that, you know, we struggle with the most is just sort of your compelling offer, right? Exactly. What is it that you're selling? How do you position yourself as a great solution for some segment of your ideal customer, right? Because not every single ambitious founder, as an example, if you will say that's our ideal customer. Not every single one of them is gonna buy what we sell, right? Some are gonna be really focused on getting the cheapest thing that's out there, um, you know, and, and, and some are, you know, probably gonna be focused on like, this is what the cool kids are doing, right? And we may not be the cool kids. I don't know. Um, I'm just making that up, obviously. Um, but you have those, you know, those sort of values that, um, vary across, you know, what, what really matters? Is it price? Is it innovation? Is it just amazing service, really always being there for you? You know, is it, you know, is it that, you know, super Cool Kids Club, which is basically status oriented. You know, what is it that you know, is really important to you when you're making a decision about buying this product or service versus that product or service?

Cole Abbott (00:03:56 -> 00:03:57)

Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:03:57 -> 00:04:24)

And so those things, those four things, I think, you know, great companies are really super clear and, and, and they're focusing on those things forever. And the beauty of forever is it gives you the power of compounding, right? 'cause you're just getting better and better and better at doing those things as a company, as individuals, right? In the marketing organization, in your customer service organization, in your product, et cetera. Really just, you know,

Cole Abbott (00:04:26 -> 00:04:26)

Forever

Mark Abbott (00:04:26 -> 00:04:36)

Agreements just take advantage of the compounding of useful information, which, you know, I think Einstein referred to as what one of the eighth Wonders of the world,

Cole Abbott (00:04:37 -> 00:04:55)

The Right, yeah. The Eighth Wonder. Yeah. Um, yeah. And it is something really important to be able to just focus on the thing and have full confidence that that's what you're doing. Yeah. We talk about our forever agreements. Yeah. Right? Like when in doubt you lean into, into that which is most concrete. Yeah. I work on that, that framework there. Yeah. Um,

Mark Abbott (00:04:57 -> 00:05:52)

Yeah. And, and, and you know, as we've talked about before, um, and it's a little bit of a rabbit hole, which please keep me from going into. Um, I, I believe when you look at really well run companies, um, companies that have stood for decades and decades, um, and then all of a sudden they kind of, you know, run off the side of the road into a ditch. Um, I believe, you know, they, you, what's happened is a new leader has come along and basically changed something fundamental. And a bunch of the people in the company, a bunch of the ideal stakeholders, including Right. Um, we're like, wait a second, that's not why I do business with you. That's not why I value you. Um, and so, you know, and then all of a sudden you have a bunch of people, ideal stakeholders, who are no longer, you know, ideal stakeholders. 'cause you just change the definition of something. Um, and so, you know, all of a sudden, you know, you get a, the data shows a rebellion of some sort

Cole Abbott (00:05:53 -> 00:06:26)

When you, I I, it'd be interesting how many times we bring up <inaudible> in Spence Yes. In the podcast. Yeah. But it's, it's a recurring thing. And when you change that, you change who you are. Yeah. And you change who you serve, you change who you are, and Yeah. If you show up being a different person that erodes trust that Right. There's just a flag there. And that creates uncertainty, that creates anxiety. Yeah. And there's Right, there's a mathematical reason to stay away from that. And there's also an emotional side Yeah. Intuitive thing. Yeah. Against sort of staying in those business relationships and those partnerships. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:06:27 -> 00:08:18)

Yeah. The, uh, and if you think about it, right, if you change your ICP, then you probably gotta change your, you know, your compelling offer, your unique value proposition, your three uniques, whatever you want to call that thing. Um, and, uh, so that changes. And then, you know, so now you've knocked two of the four out <laugh>. And, and then also, you know, I, I believe that there's not just product market fit, there's culture market fit. So I believe even your culture is kind of set up to serve your ICP. I mean, there, there's certainly, there's a, there's a, a, a relationship between these two things, right? And, um, you know, if you look at our culture, you know, one of the things that, you know, we're, we're, we're focused on, or look at it from a how we, how we, how we think, and how we behave and how we're structured. You know, we, we've been transitioning or moving towards 24 7, you know, seven days a week, 360 365, right? Because we believe that, uh, you know, if an ambitious founder is working on, you know, their vision or working on their goals or whatever, at 3:00 AM we should, and they have an issue, we should be there to support them. Uh, and so, you know, that's part of our culture, right? Um, and, uh, it's a part of the, the way we think. So I think, you know, it's like, you know, it's, it's one of those things where you, if that's a, it's not just a thread right? In the cloth, it's a key part of it. And if you rip that thing or change that thing, it just has huge amount of knock on effects.

Cole Abbott (00:08:19 -> 00:08:44)

And if your culture is very discordant from who you're serving, yeah. If the right, you just, you need to have some element of, and we go on this, you know, in another thing, right? But if you have too much of that disconnect between who is how and how people are working internally, and what their values are, and the values of the people you're trying to serve, you can't really create something that's very resonant, right. In that situation. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:08:45 -> 00:09:50)

Yeah. I mean, the, the, and I haven't really thought about how to articulate this well, but you know, if your organization has no appreciation for how hard it is to build a company, right? If they, if they, if they have no respect for the grind, if they have no appreciation for the level of ambition, if they think that, you know, your culture believes that, you know, everything is easy or there's no such thing as meritocracy, there's no such thing as, uh, you know, higher levels of competing. If there's, you know, if all this stuff is just right, just not true or relevant, then you've got a tension between the nature of your customer and the nature of your culture.

Cole Abbott (00:09:51 -> 00:10:13)

Yeah. And that's not gonna, you're not gonna, well, there's a lot of things that will happen there. Yeah. Your product's not gonna be great at the end of the day. Yeah. Your service isn't gonna be great. And then if you have a lot of people that are passionate about what they're doing Yeah. Because they disagree with the premise, right? Yeah. Right. It goes both ways, right? Yeah. External's not gonna be good, and then the the inputs are gonna be bad too. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:10:14 -> 00:10:51)

Yeah. And the, uh, you know, I think, um, we see it almost, I, I, I'd say it's damn near every day, right? We see the feedback we get through our platform, um, how our customers genuinely appreciate how much we're there to help them. And, um, and, and, and like every single day someone's like saying, you know, thank you, really appreciate your team. Really appreciate so and so, and, um, and if we didn't show them, if they didn't feel the respect, we wouldn't have the relationships we have

Cole Abbott (00:10:52 -> 00:10:52)

Oh.

Mark Abbott (00:10:52 -> 00:10:54)

With our customers. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:10:55 -> 00:11:16)

And, and you see there are certain, we do a whole study on this, but the examples of businesses and brands that sort of go against who their ideal customer is. Yeah. Right? Where, where they're trying to chase a, a trend or follow some maybe political motion. Yeah. You

Mark Abbott (00:11:16 -> 00:12:12)

Don't, you know, obviously everybody tries not to sort of get into the politics that we've experienced over the last couple of years, but to state the obvious, right? If you're badmouthing your ideal customer, like that's really a knucklehead move, right? I mean, just, I mean, I could get, I can get worked up about this, and it's just like, no, no. Right. Um, if you don't respect your customer, they're not gonna respect you, you know? So it's just gonna be, it's, you know, we've seen it, right? It's just, and it falls into the political realm these days, unfortunately, because there's so much confusion out there, um, about what matters and what's important and, and things that, you know, you know, you want to sort of avoid. 'cause you don't want to make anybody feel bad about themselves, but don't do that. Right. No,

Cole Abbott (00:12:12 -> 00:12:12)

<laugh>,

Mark Abbott (00:12:14 -> 00:12:15)

That's all I can

Cole Abbott (00:12:15 -> 00:12:25)

Say. Yeah. I know. And it's a <laugh>. Yeah. There's a lot We could go down on that one. Yeah. So this'll <laugh> go back to the Yeah. Go back to the main topic.

Mark Abbott (00:12:26 -> 00:12:28)

Yeah. But I mean, it's a good, but it's a, it's, it's

Cole Abbott (00:12:28 -> 00:12:30)

Important. It's, it's,

Mark Abbott (00:12:30 -> 00:13:13)

It's a reality, right? Yeah. And, you know, we're all about, um, you know, we deeply believe in the advancement of useful information for useful information to advance. We need to have, you know, positive openness, possible positive and negative feedback loops. And, um, and, and, and now that, that means listening and understanding and, and, you know, and when, when, you know, people just force themselves, um, on others without taking into consideration sort of the nature of their work, it just, it's, you know, it's, it creates, you know, it creates it, it just, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's unfortunate.

Cole Abbott (00:13:14 -> 00:13:52)

Yeah. And, and usually there is a difference. And you, it's pretty apparent when there's a difference between, uh, when something like that happens. Yeah. And it's just one or two people that made a mistake. Yeah. And they're just acting out of line, considering the rest of the culture of the company. Right. And those usually blow over pretty quickly. Yeah. But when there's a serious cultural disconnect within Yeah. Right. And then they kind of fumble the whole situation, right. Because they've lost their identity, they've lost that certainty of who they're serving. Yeah. And, and then that's when you really lose that sense of trust Yeah. Who

Mark Abbott (00:13:52 -> 00:14:38)

They're serving and how they're serving back to, right. We were talking about, it's not just the ICP ultimately, it's also your, your compelling offer, right. So who you're serving, you gotta, you know, you gotta be like, you got, you gotta live up to that. You gotta be, you know, and everybody in the company needs to understand that, right. And then how you're serving, you gotta live up to that. And everybody in the company needs to understand that. Right. And how you make life better. You gotta live up to that. And everybody in the company needs to understand that. And so, um, and you know, and as I think we're now probably beating, you know, uh, going too too long on, um, you know, getting clear on your ICP and respecting and leaning into that, and just, to me it's fundamental is like fundamental.

Cole Abbott (00:14:39 -> 00:14:39)

Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:14:40 -> 00:14:41)

If you wanna build a great company,

Cole Abbott (00:14:42 -> 00:14:49)

If you wanna build a great company that is effective in its inputs in serving its client's customers,

Mark Abbott (00:14:49 -> 00:14:51)

But if it's not, it's not a great company. No.

Cole Abbott (00:14:52 -> 00:14:52)

So, so

Mark Abbott (00:14:53 -> 00:14:55)

I hate to be black and white about it, but it's Right.

Cole Abbott (00:14:55 -> 00:15:00)

Well, yeah. You're not going to, you can only keep up that facade for so long.

Mark Abbott (00:15:00 -> 00:16:06)

<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. You can get lucky, right? I mean, I mean, and that's, you know, and I think that's part of the, part of the tale here, right? And I think it's something I learned many, many years ago, um, which is as an investor and a board board member, right? You know, I've sat on the boards of companies that, that, you know, that had a product whose moment in time was pretty darn good. Right? And there's some silly products out there, right? Like the Beanie Babies, or I remember, uh, this one company that we invested in had bought a product that rep, and it ended up representing like 20% of the revenues, but it was a fad, right? And boom, right. Within three years, that fad had gone, and all of a sudden, you know, 20% of the revenues just disappeared. And that they bought the company for the product. And they didn't buy the co They did, they didn't buy the company thinking through the long-term implications of, uh, of their ICP and, uh, and, and, and how they best served.

Cole Abbott (00:16:07 -> 00:16:23)

If your goal is to serve your ICP, right? Doing the fat is not the best solution. But if your goal is to chase revenue and Right. And make money quickly, yes. Right? Those different games, different strategies. Yeah. What we're doing here is trying to help people build great companies. Yes. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:16:23 -> 00:16:51)

And our definition of great company is a company that will be here for decades and decades that we've said this before, that you would gladly, lovingly right hand off to the next generation of leaders or hand off to someone an, an a, a buyer who you think is going to continue to respect all that you've built and the vision that you laid out for not just the company, but all of the ideal stakeholders.

Cole Abbott (00:16:52 -> 00:17:15)

And then that requires that, that leader, that founder to be, to have all of these things, right. Your ideal customer, your vision and everything. Be explicit, coherent, and resonant. Yes. So that you're comfortable and, and confident in the next generation or the next iteration's. Yeah. Uh, ability to take that run with it. Yeah. And succeed. Yeah. And evolve. Right. We, we want to and

Mark Abbott (00:17:15 -> 00:17:24)

Evolve for that, but, but you know, the explicit, coherent, resonant, if you do it really, really well, it, you know, they get what they're buying.

Cole Abbott (00:17:25 -> 00:17:25)

Yes.

Mark Abbott (00:17:26 -> 00:18:22)

Right? Or the new CEO gets what he or she is taking over and leading. Right. And they respect it and they're like, I'm, this is cool. Right? I'd love to be over, you know, this is a great company. I have a deep sense for, you know, sort of where the work, 'cause they're CEOs should be visionaries. Let's just put that out on the table. Right. So the, a good CEO needs to have at least a five to 10 year perspective with regard to the business that they're taking, that they're either running or taking over at least five to 10 years. And so it's like, I get how I can lead the next generation, and I get how I can move this company forward, 5, 10, 15, 20 years, whatever it is. Um, and I'm excited about it because man, they've given me this amazing company that's so bloody, you know, clear, um, about who it is and, you know, and, and where it's going and, and how it provides value.

Cole Abbott (00:18:24 -> 00:19:08)

Yeah. So it's, it's essential in that situation to have to give or to put, to put the next person on the best foot Yeah. Going into the, the new, right. Going into the future. Going into the unknown. Yeah. So you have to have all that certainty, all of that be explicit and it be running well. Right. You have to have a robust system, and this is a huge part of that. Yeah. So <laugh>, take it back to the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. To how do we get there? Yeah. Right? What we, we say it's a Right, they're ideal when they embody a specific mix of geographic demographic, psychographic characteristics. Yes. How do you go about really refining, figuring out who or what that person, what that individual looks like?

Mark Abbott (00:19:08 -> 00:19:19)

Yeah. I think, I think, you know, the, my instincts are, and we should have the res, we should do the research on this, right? But I, I think the vast majority of really successful founders, um,

Cole Abbott (00:19:23 -> 00:19:23)

Are,

Mark Abbott (00:19:24 -> 00:21:02)

Have identified a problem and an ICP, right? So they've identified a problem and they've identified a problem that's, you know, commonly faced by an ICP. Um, and they're excited about that, right? Addressing the problem. And they're excited about serving that ICP, right? So the founder has familiarity with that. ICP maybe the, you know, a lot of times, right? You'll see, uh, companies that were, uh, started by founders who were working at another company that ran into this problem with their customers. Their company didn't wanna solve the problem, right? It's not core to what they're doing, but they're like, this is actually, this is, you know, we're facing this right now. I wish someone would help me with this issue. And all of a sudden you start going down this, this, this path where you, you know, kind of, you're building it for yourself. And obviously, you know, you have a decent understanding of who you are. Hopefully that's, you know, I, I'm right. And, and, and you're like, and there's, you know, hopefully thousands if not millions of me and me, and this need are going to be, you know, the types of me and this type of need is gonna be here for decades and decades and decades. 'cause to me, that's the, those are the, the, the great companies are, once again, they're dealing with like a, a an ICP that will be here for decades and decades and decades. And they're solving a problem, right? Or addressing an opportunity that will be here for decades and decades and decades.

Cole Abbott (00:21:03 -> 00:21:04)

Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:21:04 -> 00:21:05)

Does that make sense? And

Cole Abbott (00:21:05 -> 00:21:22)

That's, that's where you get those passionate entrepreneurs, and there's so many examples of, oh, I needed this thing, so I did it. Yeah. And then there you go. There you go. Yeah. And there's Right, if you have to ask the question, there's probably a bunch of other people that also have the same question, right. And need the same answer. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:21:22 -> 00:23:01)

And then, and then, you know, you're, you know, if you're a founder, you know, founders have to be ambitious. 'cause it's hard. Right? We've talked about that a bunch of times. So, so, so, so you're like, you're a potential founder. And we have already said, you know, you, you, you, you, you need to have a pretty damn high level of ambition. So, so we have this person who's identified a need, and they're ambitious, and they're curious. That's another part of, you know, about part of the game. And so you're like, you know, and because of that, maybe they've been involved in a, a group, right? A peer group or an industry group or, or, you know, they know a bunch of other people that are in their industry, and it's like, Hey, Joe, right? What do you think about this idea? And, and, and then you go off and you, you know, you call, Hey, Sally, hey, hey, Jenny. Hey. Right? And you go and you talk to 10, 20 people, and they're like, yeah, no, I, that would be awesome, right? And what if I, if I build it, will you buy it? Uh, what's it gonna look like? What's it gonna be priced at, right? What's the, you know, what, how are you gonna position it and sell it? And it's like, well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, oh, no, I'd definitely be up there. Would you want to invest? Right? And so that's how this all, you know, tends to fall into place. It's you, you have the idea, you go out and you socialize it. And then even better than that, you get people who are like, yeah, you know, I'll either invest in it, or if you do, if you deliver on this, I will, I will buy it. Combination of those things typically happens. Yeah.

Cole Abbott (00:23:02 -> 00:23:02)

More,

Mark Abbott (00:23:02 -> 00:23:03)

More, I should

Cole Abbott (00:23:03 -> 00:23:36)

Say, over time, it evolves. Right? And we gotta figure out that, that window of specificity, right? Like how broad is your target, right? And if you're going too broad, you gotta narrow it in. And then at some point you'll feel a little bit caged in them, right? You're not serving as much as you could. Right. What's your ceiling there? Yeah. And so, right, we're working through this right now, uh, at 90. Yeah. Um, but w how would you say, or have you had any experience, especially in coaching, right? Where people are really struggling to figure out what that window is and how narrowed and how specific to be.

Mark Abbott (00:23:37 -> 00:24:00)

Yeah. My, my experience is that almost everybody, right? Statistically speaking, they go too broad. So it, it always starts too broad and then it, it kind of overwhelms you. 'cause you got all these different voices and all these different, I'm, I'm just going, I, I don't wanna say archetypes 'cause that's probably not the right thing, right? Word choice here. Right? But you got all these differents kind of different ICPs for lack

Cole Abbott (00:24:00 -> 00:24:01)

Of better personas. Yeah. Different

Mark Abbott (00:24:01 -> 00:25:39)

Personas, right? And they all have their, their their little different needs and things like that. And, and now you're kind of just getting overwhelmed 'cause you can't make 'em all happy, right? Um, and you know, so like with 90, from the very beginning, we've always focused on, you know, the SMBs, right? And, and it just, I knew, knew enough, we knew enough not to try to even begin to go after enterprise, right? Because that's just such a different game, and it's a different selling process. It's a different buying decision. It's, it's a much more demanding complex world to be involved in. It's like, no, right now, you know, we could have as an example just said, Hey, we're gonna go after companies with, I'm just gonna make this up, 10 to 50 employees, stage four professional services organizations, right? We could have just been that bloody focused, right? And, um, and then even go even more focused than that, right? With an ambitious founder who has this sort of characteristics and, um, and just like super serve them, and then started to expand, right? And said, okay, now what's the next market that's most likely gonna be buying what we're selling? Um, and so you evolve from, you include not just professional service organizations, but maybe software companies, right? And then, and then, and then, and then, or, you know, you could do, like what ServiceTitan did is you are just gonna focus on construction companies, right? Boom. Right? We're gonna focus on construction companies with these this size. And then I haven't studied them, but you know, I've been aware of them for years.

Cole Abbott (00:25:39 -> 00:25:41)

You studied them a few years ago?

Mark Abbott (00:25:42 -> 00:26:22)

Not really. I didn't, I did. Yeah, I did <laugh>, but, but, you know, uh, but you know, they evolved, right? And so, um, so, but I think a lot of people get too big in the beginning, and then then they get, you know, really, you know, more and more and more focused. And then once you have all this working, it's like, okay, so now who's next? Now who's next? Now who's next? Right? What are the adjacency opportunities? And sometimes the adjacency opportunities are expanding your ICP. Other times it's just by providing that very narrow ICP with a more com, you know, with a broader offering of, you know, of, of, of products and or services.

Cole Abbott (00:26:23 -> 00:27:26)

I, it seems my instinct with these sort of things is that there's a couple ways to look at it. One is you wanna be able, you want to have it as specific as possible, or as specific as you can manage, right? Right. If it becomes unmanageable and and diluted, right? Then you need to, you need to focus on what you can control and what you actually can serve. Right? But you also, at the same time, uh, if you are ambitious, right? You wanna preserve your options in the future, right? You wanna make sure that you can expand Yeah. And not just put you right in that hole, right? Right. Whereas where if you expand, people are like, what are you doing? Right? And then, so that kind of comes back to, I guess you'd say the start with why Simon Sinek philosophy of if you just bucket yourself like we're a computer company and you start making other things besides computers, right? You're like, what are you doing? Right? But if you start with why, and like, this is who we are, this is why we're serving people we serve, right? Then you can go and, and expand endlessly, right? As you grow, as you want to just serve that your, uh, your customers,

Mark Abbott (00:27:26 -> 00:28:52)

Yeah. I dunno about the word endlessly, but, but, but you have realist. Yeah. But you, but, but you can continue to expand, right? Because ultimately, you know, the question is, you know, you know, you, you get into a lot of questions about, okay, so are you just focusing on serving, you know, a unique geography? Maybe you're just, you know, you have an HVAC company and you want to be amazing in the metropolitan area of Chicago. I'm just making that up, obviously, right? But then you say, well, you know, now maybe I want to go and get into, into a couple other, let's say it's Milwaukee and Fort Wayne, Indiana, Indianapolis, whatever. You, you know, start to start to expand there, go to Detroit, et cetera, and then ultimately make your way, you know, across, across the country. That's one way of playing the game, right? Um, and, uh, but ultimately I think, you know, you need to have a sense for am I serving a market and potential markets that will enable me to continue to grow and grow and grow and have a reasonable enough growth rate to attract and retain my ideal stakeholders, right? To have a reasonable enough growth rate to be able to sort of have the wind at your back potentially, in terms of fighting entropy, right? Because if the market's super, super narrow and super, super small, right? You're gonna run out of opportunity and, and then you're, you know, you're either gonna sell it to someone else who's done the bigger thing, or you're gonna go out of business because you can't attract and retain ideal stakeholders. Or

Cole Abbott (00:28:52 -> 00:28:59)

If you get into a more of a crisis situation and your, your narrow revenue stream dries up. Yeah, yeah. You right. You're not gonna endure. Yeah.

Mark Abbott (00:29:01 -> 00:29:43)

Yeah. So it's imp pretty important to get clear on the ICP and then for you to be thinking the longer term, obviously, that we talk about that all the time, right? So you, you know, there's different stages, right? Okay, so now product market fit. Now, now, now, now, now let's just, you know, as we, as we build the organization, let's be able to think out longer term in terms of our ICP, how we're gonna attract and retain them. And, uh, and, and, and obviously also at the same time, build high trust relationships with a lot of ideal stakeholders, including our employees who are gonna want to make sure that we have opportunities for them to grow so that their dreams can be filled when we achieve our dreams.

Cole Abbott (00:29:44 -> 00:29:48)

I feel like that's a great note to end on. Cool. All right. All right. Thank you.