Carragee Consulting

ICP & the strike zone

I spent a day in June at the Snowflake’s Dev Day in SF. To be honest it was overwhelming. So many people, so many vendors, too much to really take in.

I went because I wanted to talk to a couple people and get more familiar with consultancies and tools in the analytics space.

Talking to Ben Castleton reminded me of a funny memory for the 4th of July in Germany about 20 years ago.

Ben asked me: ‘how can I help you? What sort of leads can I send your way?”

Now I don’t have a specific Ideal Customer Profile I target and so it’s easier to talk about the type of people I like to collaborate with or the analytics problems I’ve been able to bring insights to or tools and methods I enjoy using.

Those indirect answers don’t necessarily help someone help me though.

Now back to summer camp in Essen, Germany 2004…

I was a camp counselor with a group of 14-16 year old boys who were supposed to be improving their English, but either wanted to play soccer or magic the gathering. Some of the boys wore Yankees caps as fashion items so on the 4th of July I decided we should play baseball.

I came to learn that none of the boys could name a single player and about half of them thought you got runners out by pegging them with the ball al la run the bases. Another source of confusion was that the pitcher was on the opposing team of the batter, they were not in fact trying to collaborate.

Imagine if the pitcher knew you liked fastballs on the inside corner or that you’d swing above the strike zone for change-ups? For a good ball player getting a string of your favorite pitches would be as easy to hit as having them placed on a T.

This is all to say that I could make my life easier by narrowing the strike zone and calling for the pitches I want.

Sometimes in business the batter and the pitcher are more or less on the same team. It’s not a zero-sum game, there’s plenty of work to be done and connecting people, tools and problems can be a win-win.