Article · 10 min read

How to Identify Your Riskiest Business Model Assumptions

Ash Maurya · LEANSTACK blog (Ash Maurya) Free Intermediate

Maurya gives you a repeatable way to rank risk instead of guessing at it. He points you at the universal early risks (do these customers have the problem, is the pain worth paying for, can you reach them) and shows why founders mis-prioritise and waste months. This is the how-to behind the 'rank by how fatal and how uncertain' step in our answer.

  • Tackle what is riskiest, not what is easiest or most fun to build
  • Early on, problem, willingness to pay, and channel risks are near universal
  • Intuition alone is a poor guide; talk through your risks with advisors and analogs

The question it answers

  1. How do I decide the single riskiest assumption my MVP should test instead of trying to prove the whole idea at once?

Read with it

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  3. The essay that put 'product-market fit' into the startup vocabulary. Read it for the gut-level description of what PMF feels... pmarchive.com Essay · ~15 min read The Only Thing That Matters Marc Andreessen
  4. Video · ~13 min How to Plan an MVP Michael Seibel (YC)
  5. Video · ~20 min How To Talk To Users | Startup School Gustaf Alstromer
  6. The Test Card is a one-page worksheet that forces a vague market-size belief into four fields: what we believe, how we will... Strategyzer Template · one-page worksheet Test Card Strategyzer (Alexander Osterwalder)
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