Tools · Startup & strategy
Customer Development
Turn a venture's riskiest assumptions into a get-out-of-the-building validation plan.
How it works
Lean-startup doctrine (Blank/Ries/The Mom Test via the start-a-company corpus): each assumption → falsifiable hypothesis + an experiment with ONE metric and a pass threshold (innovation accounting) + Mom-Test discovery questions (past behavior, never pitch) + pivot-or-persevere signals. Consumes MF-174's riskiest_assumptions directly.
You bring
{ venture, assumptions?: string[], cluster? }
You get
{ venture_summary, stage, validation_plan[] (hypothesis · experiment · interview_questions · grounded_in), interview_guide[], pivot_or_persevere, grounded_in, provenance }
Use it for
- →Pair with MF-174: pipe the canvas's riskiest_assumptions in → get the experiments + interview scripts to test them
- →Pre-build gut-check: founder has an idea → a prioritized list of what to validate before writing code
- →Discovery-interview prep: generate a Mom-Test-compliant interview guide for a specific assumption
See it work
example outputVenture: "ShiftSync, a shift-scheduling app for independent coffee shops," with the two riskiest assumptions piped in from its Business Model Canvas.
Customer-Development & Validation Plan — ShiftSync
Venture: A mobile scheduling app for owner-operated coffee shops (1–3 locations) that builds the weekly rota, handles shift swaps over text, and flags overtime before it happens.
Stage: discovery — the riskiest assumptions are about whether the problem is acute enough to switch tools, not yet about whether the product converts. Get out of the building before you build.
Validation plan
1. Owners feel scheduling pain acutely enough to switch — riskiness: high
Hypothesis: We believe independent café owners spend 2+ hours a week on the rota and hate it; we'll know we're wrong if, unprompted, they don't name scheduling as a top-3 weekly annoyance. Experiment — customer interview (×12): Metric: share of owners who name scheduling unprompted. Pass bar: ≥ 7 of 12. Discovery questions (Mom-Test — ask about the past):
- Walk me through how you built last week's schedule. What did you use?
- When did a scheduling mistake last cost you — what happened?
- What have you already tried to fix this, and why did you stop?
2. Baristas will adopt swaps in-app rather than over group text — riskiness: medium
Hypothesis: Staff will move swaps into the app if the owner mandates it; wrong if a concierge pilot sees most swaps still happen over text. Experiment — concierge MVP (2 shops, 2 weeks): Metric: % of swaps logged in-app. Pass bar: ≥ 60%.
Interview guide
Open neutral ("I'm trying to learn how cafés handle scheduling — not selling anything"), anchor every question in the last occurrence, follow the emotion, and never pitch.
Pivot or persevere
- Persevere if: owners name the pain unprompted and the concierge pilot holds adoption.
- Pivot if: owners shrug at scheduling but light up about labor-cost control — re-aim at overtime/compliance.
Grounded in The Mom Test, The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Blank), and The Lean Startup (Ries).
Run it now
Turn your assumptions into a validation plan
Get a get-out-of-the-building plan: each riskiest assumption becomes a falsifiable hypothesis, an experiment with one metric, and Mom-Test discovery questions.
Optional — one assumption per line.
Prefer code? Call it over the API or hand it to your AI agent via MCP — POST /api/bicycle/customer-development · build_customer_development_plan. API & agent access →