Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

STEP 21

Test Key Assumptions

IN THIS STEP, YOU WILL:

• Take your list of key assumptions and design empirical tests to validate or refute them.
• Perform the empirical tests, moving quickly and efficiently to decrease the risk of your startup.

Now that we have identified those key assumptions, let's use a scientific approach to test them, individually before just smashing them all together and seeing if they work.

With key assumptions identified, you will now design experiments to test these assumptions in the cheapest, quickest, and easiest ways possible. The goal is to gather empirical data that either supports or disproves your assumptions. These experiments will not require much, if any, in the way of building physical goods or writing code, but rather logical thinking to design simple yet effective tests. The rigorous primary market research you have done thus far and the single-minded focus on your Persona focuses you so that when you do test assumptions, they will be highly relevant ...