Building a Discovery Driven Plan: What are the typical assumptions?
I’m often asked to give people a checklist of assumptions that they can use to get started developing a discovery driven plan. Here are some of the most critical:
What is my profit model?
Have I really thought through my unit of business (what I sell)?
Have I thought through how my business is going to run - cost, asset, and revenue architectures?
What assumptions am I making about major obstacles and the likelihood of breaking through them
Who are my customers?
Who will be buying and why? Can you name them (your ‘first five’ sales)?
What will produce or reduce resistance to buying?
How do customers from different market segments behave differently?
Market growth rate?
How will the customer be accessed (distribution?)
How many potential customers must I contact before one agrees to buy?
What about my offer will make a compelling difference in the marketplace?
Functional characteristics relative to market’s need
Cost and quality
Entire ecosystem in place - or can be put together
Service requirements and costs
Who is my competition?
Different categories - traditional, potential, oblique
Likely reaction to my move
Visibility of my move them
Likely responses to my move - price, functionality, marketing
Capacity to respond
Motivation to respond
Operational Assumptions
Ability to produce at required scale
Proprietary advantages and how much lead time they’ll give you here
Availability of people with required knowledge and skills
Development time and cost
Plan or resource independence
Alignment of selling, production, servivce rhythms
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Financial assumptions
Cash required to reach cash breakeven - daily, weekly, monthly breakevens
Investment required to P&L breakeven
gross and net margins
Costs and profits at various volumes
Organizational Assumptions
Support of key internal players
Availability of qualified management
Organizational setting and why this makes sense