If you’re an AI startup founder, chances are you’re building something great…
You’re also probably struggling to acquire and retain paying customers.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
I’m here to help you turn your AI startup idea into a revenue-generating business.
Let me give you a little taste of what I can do for you…
I’ll take a look at your startup’s main landing page and give you feedback on who I think your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is—based on how you’re talking to them.
What is an ICP?
An Ideal Customer Profile is a clear description of the type of customer who gets the most value from what you offer—and is most likely to buy, stay, and grow with you.
When you nail your ICP definition, and everything else—marketing, sales, customer success—gets a whole lot easier.
After all, the first step of your quest to 10M ARR is knowing exactly who you’re building for.
This analysis will help you see whether you’re really solving a problem that matters—or just building in hopes someone will care.
It’ll also show you how well your content is set up for AEO — because these days, AI reads your site too.
What is AEO?
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is about making your website easy for AI tools—like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini—to understand and explain.
It’s like SEO, but for the world of AI.
Instead of just ranking, you become the answer.
Startups using AEO are already seeing more qualified leads—because they show up when it matters most.
To run the analysis, I’ll use my favourite framework to define an ICP. The framework is called SPEED.
SPEED = Situation · Pain · Effort (Current) · Effort (New) · Decision
Why use a framework to define my ICP?
If you want to move fast and learn from the market, you need a simple way to make sense of what’s working—and what’s not. That’s where a good framework comes in. It helps you break your strategy into clear parts, so you can improve each one as you go.
The SPEED framework works for AI startups because, depending on who your customer is, they will buy and interact with you at different SPEEDs.
If you are solving a problem that only concerns prosumers, they are likely going to have a high SPEED of engagement.
Whereas if you are solving a problem for an enterprise, they are likely going to engage at a very low SPEED.
Details about each SPEED item
SITUATION: ​Firmographic information about your ICP. Factors such as size of company, number of employees, software they use, hiring needs, security needs, revenue goals. The demographics (role, titles, locations,etc…) of your users and decision makers are also included here
PAIN: Pains are normally formulated as “needs”. Namely, something that needs to change or to get done to achieve/avoid a certain outcome.
EFFORTS (current): Describes (usually in a workflow manner) the different steps the customer goes about solving the pain currently. It could be with a competitor, it could be with a DYI solution, or it could be a very convoluted way because they are not fully aware of the pain yet.
EFFORTS (new): Describes (usually in a workflow manner) the different steps the customer needs to take to change their current habit and adopt the new solution we want to propose. The onboarding and learning curve should be included to account for the efforts of changing the status quo
DECISION: The people involved in the decision to change the status quo, the process they will follow to reach that decision, and the criteria they will use to evaluate the right solution.
Drop your startup’s main landing page below and I’ll analyse it using the SPEED framework.
I’ll give you insights about the Situation, Pain, Explanation on how I’ve got my conclusions, and Recommendations on how to improve your messaging.