Focus is the mechanism

We keep the ICP deliberately narrow. Saying no to the edges is a feature of the definition, not a limitation of it — it's what lets us go deep instead of spreading thin.

Built from 1,360 deals analysed. Most importantly it gives us a working decision filter — something we can measure plans and priorities against, rather than a description we file away.

The fit test

An owner-led tours, workshops, or Food & Beverage operator in DK, NO, SE, IT, or ES selling a scheduled, catalog-based experience, from Seed through Accelerate.

Five clauses. The rest of this deck unpacks one at a time — then we'll test them.

Three kinds of business

We group them by how a host earns their living, not by industry.

If you can answer the question in the last column, you can usually place the host.

Guided tours

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• Capacity is set by a physical asset — the boat, vehicle, route or guide. You cannot oversell it.
• Mostly tourists, often international. Median booking window 72 hours; 40% book within 24.
• 30–70% through OTAs (GetYourGuide, Viator) alongside their own site.
• Severe seasonality — Nordic peak May to September, near-zero off-season.
• Weather drives cancellations and mass rebooking. That's normal operations, not an edge case.

Growth comes from adding departures, not seats.
Biggest gap: OTA channel depth, and commission we mostly cannot see live.

Instructor-led workshops

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• Hands-on instruction by the founder or a craft expert. Small groups, 5–15 people, fixed location.
• Capacity capped by space, tools, materials or instructors.
• ~70% direct through their own site; ~20% gift cards and referrals.
• Calendar published 4–8 weeks ahead, same workshop repeating through the season.
• Modest seasonality, with a heavy Christmas gift-card spike.

The line that matters: value is delivered fully in one sitting. That's what separates a workshop from a yoga studio or a language course.
Biggest gap: the private and B2B flow — most operators still run it in email.

Food & Beverage

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• Producers and curators — spirits, wine, beer, chocolate, coffee — running tastings and tours at the production site or a curated venue.
• The experience drives bottle sales, club signup and brand affinity. It's a means, not the end.
• The heaviest B2B layer of any category — often more than half of experience revenue once corporate, private and venue are counted.
• Production schedule constrains the calendar. Public hours cluster on Friday and the weekend.
• Cross-border VAT matters, and alcohol discount rules bite in Sweden and Norway.

Biggest gap: everything after the ticket — bottle sales, clubs, and the B2B invoice.

Read the operating model first

Not what industry they are in — how the transaction is shaped. Four checks, and all four have to hold.

Supporting signals: a live website, taking bookings online, operating for a year or more.

Where we draw the line

Recurring classes are the one people ask about most, because we do have real customers there. They stay supported — we are just not going out to win more until the billing work is scheduled. Memberships are off-roadmap with no ship date, so don't promise it's coming.

Five markets

Anything outside these five is out — however good the fit looks on every other axis. This is the easiest clause to check and the one people most want to make an exception for.

Nordics are projected to reach roughly 69% of net-new potential by end of 2027. Italy and Spain run into 2030–31, which is why they are a longer game rather than a quick win.

How much surface do they carry?

Once the operating model holds, the second read is complexity. Fit does not fall off a cliff — it erodes as complexity grows.

• How many locations?
• How many staff or guides?
• How many people in the buying decision?
• What systems do they already run that we would need to integrate or migrate — ERP, HR, PMS?

A solo guide on Squarespace is low-complexity. A multi-location catering school on Business Central and Planday, with a buying committee, is high-complexity — at the same revenue. The full complexity model is still being built; until it is ready, we use business volume as the gate.

Complexity is the axis. Volume is a stand-in.

Business volume is a hint that complexity is worth a closer look, because a bigger operator usually has more moving parts. It is not the gate itself. There is no revenue floor in the product ICP, and buyer structure never disqualifies on its own.

Two customers who break the size rule

Both sit far above anything we would once have called a ceiling. Both are customers we serve well.

Had we drawn the ICP on size, we would have excluded both. Size tells you how much an operator books. Complexity tells you whether we can serve them.

The ICP says who we can serve. Overlays say who a product works for.

There is one Understory ICP — the product ICP. On top of it sit functional overlays, one per product or motion. Every paid feature has a target audience somewhere inside the ICP, so the set of overlays grows over time.

This is why the ICP has no revenue floor but Sales-Led does. So when someone asks "is this customer in scope for Pay?", the first question is whether they are in the ICP at all.

Each one narrows differently

Reading overlays correctly

Match or no match?

Six operators. For each one, decide before the answer appears — and say which rule decided it, not just yes or no.

Click or press → to reveal each answer.

Decide, then reveal →

Decide, then reveal →

Decide, then reveal →

Decide, then reveal →

Decide, then reveal →

Decide, then reveal →

What to run through

• One of the three categories — tours, workshops, or food & beverage
• Selling something scheduled and catalog-based, open to any customer
• Operating in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy or Spain
• Seed through Accelerate — under €1M, with no floor in the product ICP
• Low-to-medium operational complexity — the axis that actually predicts fit

Fail any one and it isn't our ICP, however good the rest looks. Then, separately: check the overlay for whichever product you're proposing.

What's still in motion

The ICP is a living document on a roughly weekly cadence. Where it says TBD, it genuinely means TBD.

Looking it up, and who to ask

If the ICP and a system disagree, the ICP document wins — and tell whoever owns that section.