surfacing-assumptions.txt

Assumptions typically fall into four categories.
As a team using hybrid approach, consider each question, rate it:
  - 1-5 based on level of expected importance (5 is most important)
  - 1-5 based on confidence level (5 is least confident)
Will end up with a score between 2 and 10 for each question. Pick the ones with highest scores as key assumptions, and answer them as soon as possible.

Customer Value
  Customer Needs
    - Do I know what customer needs I am solving? And how do I know? Need facts.
    - Are there particular segments I am addressing?
      - Who are they?
      - What product are they buying today?
      - Why will they switch over to my product?
      - How big is it?
      - How fast is it growing?

  Competition
    - How am I different than other products or services? And how do I know? How can I keep my advantage? How do I protect my IP?
    - How will competitors react? How do I know?

  Pricing
    - How am I pricing my product or service? And why? Who is paying?

  Partners
    - Who do I need to work with to be successful? Are there companies that need to cooperate with me? How do I convince them to join me?

Technology and Operations
  Planning and Operations
    - What tasks, exactly, need to be done to make this work?
    - How will I structure the tasks to learn as I go?
    - What drives my costs?

  Staffing and Hiring
    - Who is going to do these things?
    - Do I have the talent already? If not, how am I going to get it?

  Technology
    - How will I develop and maintain my underlying technologies?

  Building for the long term
    - What needs to be done for the long term?
    - How will I build a startup that ultimately doesn't need me?

Sales and Marketing
  Channels
    - What types of sales channels am I using to go to market?
    - How will I get these channels onboard? What value will I need to give them (30% margin, 20% margin, list of names and addresses, an investment in my company... I get the point)?
    - Who is handling what aspects of sales in my organization? Who is handling prospecting, customer calls, returns, customer service?

  Customer Acquisitions
    - How am I getting new customers?
    - What is the cost of getting a customer (CAC) ? How much am I paying for marketers, sales incentives, referral fees?

  Optimization
    - How do I know these sales methods are working or not?
    - How am I going to learn as I go?
    - How will I measure success?

Financials and Profit
  Projections
    - What are my financial projections? How do I justify them?
    - How will I improve them as I go?

  Investment
    - How much money do I need to build the product or service?
    - How will I get that money?
    - How can I order my investments to maximize value and learning?