For every founding phase

Target everyone and you reach no one: message, channel and price fit nobody. Start with a narrow first segment you can reach and win over (Geoffrey Moore calls it the beachhead). You can grow later.

When a stranger can repeat it after hearing it once: for whom, which problem, which solution, what is different. If one of the four parts is missing, it is not yet an idea but a direction.

Customers already solve it today – with money, time or workarounds: a spreadsheet, a friend, doing without. Anyone spending nothing on it today will pay nothing tomorrow. Ask about behaviour in recent months, not opinions (Fitzpatrick, “The Mom Test”).

The value proposition. The other eight – customer segments, channels, customer relationships, revenue, key resources, activities, partners, costs – hang off it (Osterwalder and Pigneur). A canvas is done when every box fits the value proposition.

Price minus direct costs gives the contribution margin per unit. If it is negative or tiny, no volume will save the model – more sales enlarge the loss. This one number decides whether a financial plan makes any sense at all.

The assumption that topples everything if wrong – usually “customers will pay for this”. Rank all assumptions by importance times uncertainty and test the top one first (Ries, Lean Startup). Everything else is busywork.