The Journey turns the mindsets into practical movement. At each stage, founders gather enough evidence to decide whether an opportunity deserves further investment.
The journey is not a fixed project plan. New evidence can send the founder back to an earlier stage.
How to use this page: Find the stage that matches your current work. Follow the actions and use the completion signal to judge whether you are ready to move. The Journey tells you what to do; it does not ask you to record answers here.
↺Learning can return the founder to any earlier stage.
Record everything in one place: All investigation prompts and answers belong in the Decision Canvas. The Journey only guides the work and points to the Canvas blocks that should be updated.
The trigger — Notice
Begin with what caught your attention.
A frustration, repeated workaround, unexpected behaviour, unmet need or market change can trigger an investigation.
Notice is a founder habit, not a formal journey stage. Record the observation without introducing a solution.
Think — Understand what matters
The first three stages help founders understand the situation, customer and problem before choosing what to test.
Observe
Understand what is happening without assuming the cause.
Study the current situation without pitching an idea or assuming the cause. Watch workflows, examine workarounds, review complaints and look for repeated friction.
What to do
- Watch the current process in its real setting.
- Record repeated delays, effort, workarounds and behaviour.
- Separate direct observations from your interpretation.
- Ready to move forward when
- You can describe a repeated situation using real behaviour.
- Update in the Canvas
- Observation and Current behaviour.
Discover
Understand who experiences the situation and why it matters.
Customer conversations begin here. Ask about past behaviour, frequency, consequences and current alternatives. The purpose is to understand the customer's situation—not to validate a product pitch.
What to do
- Speak with people who recently experienced the situation.
- Study past behaviour, consequences and current alternatives.
- Look for repeated patterns rather than polite interest.
- Ready to move forward when
- You can identify a specific customer, context and meaningful consequence.
- Update in the Canvas
- Customer, Impact, Alternatives and Evidence.
Define
Turn what you learned into a focused problem worth testing.
Separate symptoms from causes. Identify the customer, situation, difficulty, effect and current alternative. Keep the proposed solution out of the problem statement.
What to do
- Separate the underlying problem from visible symptoms.
- Write one problem statement without mentioning a solution.
- Define what is inside—and outside—the current focus.
- Ready to move forward when
- The problem statement names the customer, situation, difficulty and consequence.
- Update in the Canvas
- Problem and Critical assumptions.
Test — Turn assumptions into evidence
The next two stages test what must be true and use the result to decide whether the opportunity deserves further investment.
Validate
Test the assumption that creates the greatest risk.
Identify the assumptions that could make the opportunity fail. Test the highest-risk assumptions with the smallest useful experiment, such as a prototype, manual service, paid pilot, pre-order or landing-page test.
What to do
- Choose one important assumption with weak evidence.
- Run the smallest credible experiment with relevant customers.
- Compare actual behaviour with criteria agreed in advance.
- Ready to move forward when
- The experiment produces evidence strong enough to influence a decision.
- Update in the Canvas
- Critical assumption, Validation experiment, Success criteria and Evidence.
Decide
Use the evidence to choose the next responsible investment.
Compare the evidence with success criteria agreed before the experiment. Excitement, sunk costs and polite feedback are not decision criteria.
What to do
- Compare the result with the agreed success criteria.
- Identify what is supported and what remains uncertain.
- Choose Build, Pivot, Pause or Stop and record why.
- Ready to move forward when
- The next action, limit of investment and reason are documented.
- Update in the Canvas
- Evidence-based decision.
Evidence justifies the next investment.
The opportunity remains, but the direction must change.
More evidence or better conditions are needed.
The opportunity does not justify further investment.
Build — Act on what the evidence justifies
This part of the journey begins only after a Build decision. The objective is not simply to ship a product. It is to create value while continuing to learn.
Design
Shape the smallest solution capable of creating value and learning.
Turn the validated problem into a focused solution hypothesis. Design the smallest experience capable of delivering value and generating useful evidence.
What to do
- Define the customer outcome the solution must enable.
- Remove anything not required to deliver or test that outcome.
- Decide what behaviour and result the first version must measure.
- Ready to move forward when
- The solution concept has a clear outcome, boundary and learning goal.
- Update in the Canvas
- Update the solution assumption, experiment and next investment decision.
Build
Create only what is needed to test the proposed value.
Build only what is necessary. Every feature should connect to a customer problem, a solution assumption, a learning objective and a measurable outcome.
What to do
- Build the essential path to the customer outcome.
- Connect every item to evidence or a learning objective.
- Prepare measurement before customers begin using it.
- Ready to move forward when
- A relevant customer can use the first version and its result can be measured.
- Update in the Canvas
- Keep the approved scope, learning goal and decision visible.
Launch
Learn whether customers use the solution under real conditions.
A launch is a learning event, not only a marketing event. Observe activation, usage, completion, retention, payment and customer outcomes.
What to do
- Put the solution in the hands of the intended customers.
- Observe activation, usage, payment, retention and outcomes.
- Capture behaviour without explaining away unexpected results.
- Ready to move forward when
- You have behavioural evidence showing where value is—or is not—created.
- Update in the Canvas
- Add real customer behaviour and outcomes to Evidence.
Learn
Turn real-world results into the next informed decision.
Compare expected results with actual behaviour. Record what was correct, what was wrong and what changed. Learning may return the team to any earlier stage.
What to do
- Compare expected results with actual behaviour.
- Identify which assumptions changed and what surprised you.
- Choose the next stage, action and responsible level of investment.
- Ready to move forward when
- The learning changes an assumption, decision or next action.
- Update in the Canvas
- Update Evidence, Critical assumptions and Evidence-based decision.