The Local Maxima - aka testing the wrong assumptions
You know when you test a bunch of assumptions only to realise you've had a bigger assumption the whole time? It's a bitter-sweet win, which would be all the sweeter if we could get there faster.
With my last failed startup, I was testing customer acquisition for advertisers, only to realise that problems with on-boarding other key partners, hotels, was going to kill me. With Leancamp, I ran a bunch of tests on the assumption that sponsors were necessary, which affected how I was interpreting the feedback.
I've come up with a few ways to help startups avoid this, which I'm happy to share. But I'd really like to share stories with others who've been here, so that we can create a list of 'gotchas' so other people don't trip up where we did.
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Mario López de Ávila Muñoz
commented
Salim, I have proposed a short - medium session on the use of Theory of Constraints Thinking Processes for identifying and structuring assumptions behind your hypothesis. I have been using TOC's Logic Trees for a long, long time. It helps.
Said that, I'm afraid my talk will be in spanish.