Questions
How to challenge an idea without performing doubt
To challenge a business idea, write it as the handful of claims that must all hold for it to work, find the one most likely to be false and most costly if it is, and design the cheapest test that could prove it false. Then argue the best alternative use of the same time and money, because an idea that has beaten nothing has not yet been challenged.
Turn the idea into claims
Most ideas rest on five kinds of claim: who pays, why they pay now, why they would pay you, how they will hear of you, and what each sale costs to deliver. Write each as a sentence that could turn out to be false, with a number wherever one exists. A claim that cannot be false is a slogan, and tells you nothing.
Rank the claims by two questions: how much evidence supports this, and what happens if it is wrong. The claim that is both weakly supported and fatal if false is where the challenge belongs. Teams tend to test the comfortable claims first, which is why so many ideas pass every test except the one that mattered.
Imagine it has already failed
The psychologist Gary Klein proposed a simple exercise called the pre-mortem. Before committing, the team imagines that a year has passed and the idea has failed, and each person writes down why. Because failure is assumed, people name worries they would otherwise keep to themselves.
Pair it with evidence from behavior rather than opinion. Ask prospective customers what they did the last time they faced the problem and what they paid, instead of whether they would like your solution. Friends and colleagues are kind, and kindness makes a poor test.
A worked example
A founder plans office lunches delivered at $12 a meal from a kitchen leased for $6,000 a month. The plan assumes half of each office's thirty staff order on each of 21 working days, food costs $5.50 a meal, and one $60 van run serves three offices. At that rate each meal contributes about $5.17 and each office about $1,630 a month, so four offices cover the kitchen.
Participation is the load-bearing claim. At 25 percent, delivery cost per meal doubles, each meal contributes about $3.83, and each office brings only about $600 a month, so ten offices are needed instead of four. A four-week trial with two offices, and a rule written in advance to reshape the idea if participation is below 35 percent by week three, settles the question for very little money.
The challenge should also name an alternative, such as catering for office meetings and events, which means fewer, larger orders and far fewer van runs. If that path beats daily lunches on the same criteria, the founder has learned something more valuable than a yes.
How the room challenges an idea
The idea enters the room as one option with its own Champion, who makes its strongest case. The Challenger goes straight for the load-bearing claim, and the Strategist must bring a materially different path rather than a renamed version of the same plan. Inspector marks every claim by the strength of its evidence, so a hope cannot pass for a fact.
If the room starts to agree too easily, the Contrarian attacks that consensus. The Verdict can back the idea, back the alternative, or say No Strong Winner Yet, and it names the result that would change it. The Human Decision on whether to proceed is yours.
Questions
- How is this different from asking friends?
- Friends judge the person as well as the idea, and most are generous. A useful challenge attacks named claims with evidence, and it is equally valuable whether the idea survives or falls.
- How many claims should I test?
- Usually one or two. Test the claims that are weakly supported and fatal if false, and carry the rest as known risks.
- What if the idea survives every challenge?
- Then proceed with more confidence and a written list of the conditions that would make you stop. Surviving a serious challenge is the best evidence an idea can have before the market speaks.
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