Startup validation and customer discovery
Idea validation
Idea validation and smoke tests
- How to Validate a Startup Idea in Two Weeks
- How to Design a Smoke Test That Produces a Decision
- How to Route Smoke Test Results Between a Model and a Human
- When to Stop a Smoke Test Early: A Sequential Stopping Rule
- How to Build a Fake Door Test Without Upsetting Visitors
- How to Choose a Prior for a Beta-Binomial Smoke Test
- How to Compare Two Smoke Tests on the Same Page
- How to Log a Sequential Test So the Stopping Rule Is Auditable
- All of Idea validation
Customer discovery
Customer discovery interviews
- How to Run Customer Discovery Interviews
- A Rubric for Scoring Interview Transcripts with a Model
- Customer Discovery Interviews That Avoid False Positives
- How to Blind-Code Interview Notes Before You Read Them
- What to Do with Interview Evidence You Decide to Discard
- When to Stop Interviewing: A Sample Size Rule of Thumb
- How to Blind-Code Transcripts Without Leaking Your Hypothesis
- How to Build a Discovery Dashboard Showing Disconfirming Evidence
- All of Customer discovery
Pricing research
Pricing research and interviews
- How to Audit a Pricing Interview Transcript Against the Brief
- When to Use an AI Agent to Run Pricing Interviews at Scale
- How to Brief an Agent to Ask Neutral Pricing Questions
- How to Design a Pricing Interview That Yields a Number
- How to Keep an Agent from Anchoring on Your Price
- When to Use a Survey vs an Interview for Pricing Decisions
Commitment signals
Commitment scoring and signals
- How to Ask for a Commitment Without Pitching Your Idea
- How to Map a Commitment Score to a Pilot Go/No-Go Decision
- How to Score Commitments in an AI Agent Pilot
- How to Write a Go/No-Go Rule a Second Reader Can Score Blind
- What Counts as a Real Commitment in Customer Discovery
- How to Audit a Vendor's Own Commitment Reports
- How to Handle a Commitment That Changes Mid-Pilot
- How to Log a Go/No-Go Decision So a Reviewer Can Replay It
- All of Commitment signals
Problem maps
Problem maps and build decisions
- How to Audit an LLM's Theme Coding Against a Human Sample
- How to Keep a Model's Theme Tags Stable Across Batches
- Turning Interview Notes into a Problem Map
- When to Replace a Human Coder with a Model: A Decision Rule
- How to Compare Model Theme Codes Against a Human Coder
- How to Keep a Problem Map Alive After the First Build
- How to Log a Model's Theme Codes So You Can Audit Them Later
- How to Run a Problem Interview That Produces a Trustworthy Tally
- All of Problem maps
Proof and traction
Proof points and traction evidence
- How to Build in Public Without Giving Away the Business
- How to Test a Business Plan Assumption Before You Build
- Turning Build-in-Public Readers into Customers
- Writing Build-in-Public Posts That Survive a Competitor
- How to Build a Dashboard for Disconfirming Evidence
- How to Build a Proof-Point Library for Your Sales Page
- How to Diff Your Fact Sheet Against Your Website Before a Publish
- How to Measure Whether Public Updates Bring Signups
- All of Proof and traction