Write down key hypotheses and verify them. It’s embarrassing when predicted outcomes don’t match expectations, but less pain in the long run.
Chalk Talk: Write Down Key Hypotheses
I encourage entrepreneurs to write down their key hypotheses because startups succeed through disciplined learning that builds on entrepreneurial intuition.
Instead of treating a business idea as a fixed plan, I view it as a set of testable assumptions that can be validated—or disproven—through conversations with prospects and early customers.
Every startup begins with uncertainty. The core questions are whether you are targeting the right customers, building the right features, and communicating benefits that customers actually value.
Writing these assumptions down forces founders to make them explicit instead of relying on vague optimism or diffuse beliefs.
Once documented, each hypothesis can be tested through customer interviews, prototypes, demonstrations, and early sales efforts.
I encourage entrepreneurs to document their expected outcomes or success criteria before investing significant time or money in new features. Entrepreneurs should define what evidence would confirm that an idea is working, what results would indicate it is failing, and when they will review progress.
By writing down milestones, expected outcomes, and stopping rules, founders reduce the risk of persisting with an ineffective strategy simply because they have become emotionally attached to it.
A critical aspect of this discovery process is asking prospects about past behavior instead of intentions, desires, or goals.
Prospects often share what they hope to do in the future, but intentions are a weaker level of evidence than past behavior. I recommend asking what they have already done to solve the problem, what alternatives they have tried, what resources they have committed, and what consequences they have experienced. Past actions reveal priorities far more reliably than future aspirations.
There is one useful exception. If a prospect can point to a written goal that is part of their quarterly or annual operating plan, that provides stronger evidence than a verbal statement. Especially if the customer’s organization has an active goal-setting and review process, the objective is considered strategically important, and management believes the goal is at risk.
A written objective that’s been reviewed and agreed upon suggests that the problem is not only widely visible but that resources are likely to be available to address it.
Entrepreneurship is more of a design and exploration effort than pure execution of a plan. The ability to focus and execute is necessary but not sufficient,
entrepreneurs must address problems or needs customers will pay to see solved.
Every initiative should include a written hypothesis, an expected range of outcomes, and a budget for time, money, and effort to substantiate or invalidate it. Customer conversations then provide evidence that either strengthens or weakens the hypothesis, allowing entrepreneurs to iterate intelligently instead of tinkering or making changes at random.
My experience has been that writing down key hypotheses improves decision-making because it forces you to reconcile observed outcomes with the results you predicted, rather than unconsciously adjusting your memory of your assumptions to match what happened.
Reviewing old hypotheses and assumptions can be embarrassing, but it creates shared accountability, makes learning visible across the team, and helps entrepreneurs pivot intelligently based on evidence rather than fear or frustration.
This rigor enables founders to discover what customers truly value, reduces wasted effort, and increases the likelihood of finding at least a niche market interested enough in your offering to provide sustainable revenue.
Related Blog Posts
- Experiments vs. Commitments
- Jeff Allison: How to Drive Innovation and Meet Commitments
- Beston Jack Abrams on Curiosity, Experimentation and Action
- Organizing Your Experiment Log
- We Help You Design Experiments That Move Your Business Forward
- How To Run Experiments That Improve Your Business
Image Credit: (c) Theresa Shafer
This blog post was re-published on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chalk-talk-write-down-key-hypotheses-sean-murphy-fw76c/