Handbook
Customer profile

Ideal customer profile (ICP)

This is the customer profile that we are currently targeting.

Summary: Ship-first founders

  • Software or SaaS company

  • $20K to $150K MRR

  • 1 to 4 employees (usually founder led, no dedicated support writer)

  • Based in US, UK, EU, or similar markets where self-serve support is expected

  • Technical teams who rely heavily on GitHub, Linear

  • Ship weekly or bi-weekly

  • Often bootstrapped, profitable, or close to profitable

  • Founder is hands on with product, support, and documentation

Who They Are

A small but fast moving SaaS team with a product that evolves quickly. Their knowledge base exists, but it’s messy, outdated, unstructured, or built on an obscure tool they’ve outgrown. They handle most support themselves and feel the pain of repeat questions, but don’t have bandwidth to maintain a clean, accurate help center.

Real Customers

  • Brennan Dunn — RightMessage

  • Ethan — Pixelflow

  • Tristan Roth — ISMS Copilot

Their Deeper Situation

These patterns almost always show up in this ICP:

  • They feel behind on documentation

  • They ship faster than they can update docs

  • They’ve “fixed” their KB before but it never sticks

  • They’re embarrassed when they link users to outdated pages

  • They want a help center that reflects their real product ambitions

  • Support volume is slowly creeping up

  • They see the same repetitive questions week after week

  • Their KB is fractured across multiple places

Workflow Habits

Traits that predict they’ll love Fern:

  • Founder or CTO writes docs after shipping code

  • They use GitHub + Linear heavily and ship constantly

  • Founders respond to support tickets daily

  • They write release notes but nothing downstream updates

  • Their help center is either custom, neglected, or on a weird platform

  • They like automation and strong tooling

  • They want a system that works without constant babysitting

Trigger Events

Moments where they become active buyers:

  • They’re considering rebuilding or redesigning their KB

  • Big feature launch coming

  • Onboarding a new team member

  • Releasing a public API (API docs)

  • Support load spikes from new users

  • They realize their docs are hurting conversions

  • They’ve recently received complaints about missing or outdated docs

  • They want SEO + AEO lift for long tail support queries

Business Problems They’re Aware Of

These pains are already in their head:

  • Docs take too long to write

  • Support volume is too high

  • Users get confused or stuck easily

  • Repetitive questions waste hours

  • Poor documentation hurts onboarding

  • Missing docs slow down sales

  • They can’t maintain a reliable single source of truth

  • Their product evolves too quickly

Emotional Drivers

What they feel even if they don’t say it:

  • They want to feel professional and “put together”

  • They’re embarrassed by their current help center

  • They want users to say “the docs are so clear”

  • They want to look bigger than they are

  • They hate manual busywork

  • They want a system that stays in sync with their product

  • They want to get documentation off their mental load

  • They want confidence that nothing in the KB is outdated

Internal Objections

The stuff they won’t always voice:

  • “Will the AI actually understand my product?”

  • “Will this hallucinate?”

  • “Will this break my SEO?”

  • “Is migration going to ruin a weekend?”

  • “Do I need to rewrite everything?”

  • “Do I have to learn a new workflow?”

  • “Will I still be in control of the content?”

Objection Counters

Short, sharp answers for your messaging:

  • Migration done for you, URLs preserved

  • Subdirectory hosting improves AEO and SEO

  • You approve content before it goes live

  • We update and refine, not rewrite

  • Fern mirrors your product changes automatically

  • Zero code required, no weekend projects

  • Better structure, better search visibility, better UX

Buying signals

  • They volunteer that support is taking too much of their time

  • Phrases like:

  • "Support is getting a bit crazy lately."

  • "I spend more time answering questions than building."

  • "We keep getting the same tickets."

  • They show embarrassment around their current documentation

  • You hear things like:

  • "Our docs are kind of a mess."

  • "Ignore the help center, it needs a refresh."

  • "Yeah, we haven't touched that in months."

  • They mention a planned redesign, migration, or cleanup

  • "We're thinking of cleaning up our KB soon."

  • "We want to move everything to something better."

  • "We're overdue for a docs overhaul."

  • They ask about migration early

  • Questions like:

  • "How do you handle URL redirects?"

  • "Will we lose structure or SEO?"

  • "Can you import everything automatically?"

  • They focus heavily on repeat ticket problems

  • "We must have answered this 200 times already."

  • "Users always ask about the same flows."

  • "I wish people would read the docs."

  • They ask about automation instead of customization

  • People who want themes are tire kickers.

  • People who want automation are buyers.

  • You’ll hear:

  • "So this actually keeps things updated on its own?"

  • "How does Fern know what changed?"

  • "Can this reduce ticket volume?"

  • They talk about upcoming releases

  • "We have a big launch next month and the docs are... not ready."

  • "We're shipping a lot right now and can't keep up."

  • They ask pricing questions before seeing the full demo

  • Not window shoppers. They’re mentally budgeting.

  • "So what’s the cost for our size?"

  • "Is this per seat or per article?"

  • They ask about workflow fit

  • "Who on our team would manage this?"

  • "Do we have to change how we write docs?"

  • This means they’ve already imagined adopting it.

  • They ask to see how the AI writes content

  • "Can you show me the writing process?"

  • "How does it pull from tickets and commits?"

  • They are testing whether it can replace their manual work.

  • They ask about data connections or technically probe the pipeline

  • "Can we connect GitHub and Linear?"

  • "How often does it ingest tickets?"

  • This is classic purchase intent for automation tools.

  • They ask about time savings or ROI

  • "How much does this reduce ticket load?"

  • "How accurate is the clustering?"

  • When they talk ROI unprompted, the deal is already halfway done.

Anti-Profile

Who this ICP is not:

  • People who don’t value documentation

  • Slow moving teams (monthly+ cadence)

  • Teams with an in-house support writer

  • Products with very low support volume

  • Teams who don’t use GitHub, Linear, or similar tools

Messaging Angles for This ICP [to refine]

Hit these repeatedly:

  • Docs that update themselves

  • Ship fast without leaving users behind

  • A help center that matches your product quality

  • Turn release notes, commits, and tickets into documentation

  • Your product changes constantly; your docs should too

  • Never worry about outdated articles again

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