The Revenue vs. ICP Dilemma: How Hyperproof Maintained Customer Focus While Scaling 2x Annually

Every startup faces it: the temptation to chase revenue at the expense of ideal customer profile (ICP) focus. When Hyperproof CEO Craig Unger shared his company’s growth journey in a recent Category Visionaries episode, one lesson stood out: maintaining ICP discipline isn’t just about saying no—it’s about building sustainable growth.

The Growth Challenge Hyperproof has been “growing at least two x a year for a number of years” while building “hundreds of customers, dozens of partners.” But unlike many startups that achieve rapid growth by casting a wide net, they’ve maintained strict discipline around their target customer profile.

The Early Stage Tension Craig is candid about the challenges: “There’s a natural tension between taking on all comers in the beginning because you want to make revenue. And then you may create obligations for yourself to support customers outside of your ICP that really isn’t helpful to you.”

This tension is particularly acute for startups pioneering new categories. Hyperproof wasn’t just selling a product—they were introducing a new approach to compliance operations. The temptation to take any interested customer was strong.

The Strategic Choice Instead of maximizing short-term revenue, Craig advocated for a more focused approach: “Try to lock in on your key customer, one that you can keep and expand and do that as fast as possible. It’s probably better to grow revenue slightly slower in order to do that.”

This strategy proved particularly important given their target market. “About 75, 80% of the time we sell into the CISO,” Craig notes. “We might start with the CISO and they’ll route to the compliance manager or chief compliance officer or somebody with a compliance title.”

Building for the Right Customer This focus shaped not just their sales strategy but their entire product development approach. As Craig explains, their solution needed to work “the way your organization works and puts the workload in the tools that they already use to do their work.”

This deep understanding of their ideal customer’s needs has driven strong results: “significant amount of expansion in our customer base every year” and strong “CSAT folks, love the product.”

The Evolution of Customer Focus Hyperproof’s ICP strategy evolved alongside market changes. Craig observed that “a lot of compliance used to be done out of legal. We have some customers that are also in the legal department, but a lot of the tech compliance has migrated away over to the CISO team.”

This shift reflected broader market trends: “The number of compliance frameworks and regulatory agencies that are kind of issuing guidance has grown much faster than I would have expected when I started the company.”

Long-term Benefits The benefits of this disciplined approach extend beyond just customer satisfaction. By maintaining ICP focus, Hyperproof could build deeper expertise in their target market’s needs. As Craig notes, this helped them “keep your development team focused as well.”

For B2B founders, Hyperproof’s experience offers valuable lessons in balancing growth with focus. While it might be tempting to chase every revenue opportunity, maintaining strict ICP discipline can actually accelerate sustainable growth. Sometimes, as Craig suggests, growing slightly slower in the short term leads to stronger, more sustainable growth in the long term.

The key is understanding that ICP discipline isn’t just about customer selection—it’s about building a focused, scalable business that can consistently deliver value to its target market. That’s how you achieve not just growth, but sustainable, profitable growth that compounds over time.