Insights topic
Startup Strategy & Validation
Validation, market sizing, competitor analysis, pricing and business models - the work that decides whether a venture proceeds.
Testing whether a market, a customer problem and a commercial model hold up before significant resources are committed.
What this topic covers
Strategy
Validating an opportunity before you build
Evaluation is the cheapest stage of company creation and the one most often skipped. Here is what it should actually test - and why the decision to stop is one of the most valuable outcomes it can produce.
Read the articleStrategy
How to size a market: TAM, SAM and SOM without fooling yourself
What TAM, SAM and SOM actually mean, how to calculate them bottom-up, and a worked example you can copy.
Read the articleProduct
How to build an MVP that actually proves something
Define the question first, scope to the evidence, and read the result honestly. How we approach MVPs in the Incubate stage.
Read the articleInvesting
Assessing risk in early-stage companies: an investor's checklist
The six-lens diligence framework we use when assessing an early-stage company, and the questions under each that reliably surface the real risk.
Read the articleComing next on this topic
- Customer discovery interviews: a practical methodEvaluate
- Competitor analysis that changes decisionsEvaluate
- Choosing a business model: subscription, usage or transactionEvaluate
- Pricing an early-stage B2B productEvaluate
- The Business Model Canvas in practiceCreate
- Writing a value proposition that survives contact with buyersCreate
- Financial modelling for a pre-revenue ventureCreate
- Stage gates: deciding to proceed, pivot or stopEvaluate