When searching for "blocked" demand, it's easy to invent problems from logical first principles (e.g., "all companies want to reduce costs"). This "wish-casting" ignores the customer's actual context and priorities. True pull is never generic; it must be a specific, top-of-mind problem for a user right now.

The default state for any new product is zero demand. Instead of trying to create desire, your job is to find the rare, pre-existing conditions where a customer is so urgently blocked on a project that they would be irrational not to buy your solution.

When selling to what you believe is a single ICP, but some buyers have intense 5/5 "Pull" and others have a mild 2/5, your ICP definition is flawed. The difference in their behavior is the key signal. You must diagnose the non-obvious differences between these groups to define your true, high-intensity ICP.

Real demand isn't a wish list; it's an active struggle. "Coping" customers are fighting a subpar solution right now, while "blocked" customers would act immediately if a viable option existed. Both represent a "spring-loaded" market ready to adopt a new product that solves their problem.

Founders often believe their ICP is a theoretical construct for their website and pitch decks. In reality, a company's true ICP is determined by the customers the sales team is actively pursuing and successfully closing, which can reveal a critical disconnect from the intended strategy.

A traditional ICP mixes high- and low-intent buyers, yielding mediocre 20-30% close rates. An ICP based on "pull" focuses exclusively on the specific situations that create urgent, blocked demand. This forces hyper-specificity and builds a more efficient GTM motion by targeting a cohort with a near-100% close rate.

Stop defining your Ideal Customer Profile with abstract firmographics. Instead, feed context from your best closed-won deals into an AI and ask it to find public data that signaled their specific pain *before* they engaged you. This reverse-engineers a truly effective, data-driven targeting model.

Pull isn't just a problem; it's a state of active struggle. Think of it as physics: the customer is applying force toward a project, but their existing options are applying a counter-force. Your product's role is to unblock this potential energy, which is often invisible until a viable new solution is presented.

Instead of a generic persona, define your target customer with a 'pull hypothesis': who would be *weird not to buy*? This structured framework forces you to articulate the specific project they're trying to accomplish, why their current options are bad, and why your solution becomes irresistible. It focuses on their demand, not your product's features.