Every time a company launches a new product, they are attempting the hardest thing in all of business: finding product-market fit. The state in which a large set of customers are simultaneously ripping the product out of your hands.
The business leader’s dilemma
Entering new markets. Launching new products. Serving a new customer segment. Responding to disruption (including AI). Commercializing new technologies. Standing up a second engine.
In all of these situations, senior business leaders find themselves in the shoes of the entrepreneur, staring down the same hairy problem:
How in the world do I make sense of all the possible things I could do and create, and deliver the valuable thing that takes off?
But, unlike entrepreneurs, leaders in established businesses are burdened with additional complexity:
- Who do I give this to in the business?
- What’s the operating model for the new product / business?
- How do I leverage our existing assets (customer relationships, channels, marketing, IP, etc.) to our advantage?
- … and how do I manage my board of directors / CEO through a process of uncertainty?
In this type of operating environment (highly uncertain, burdened by expectations and complexity of running an enterprise) where to focus and how you run your entrepreneurial engine are critical.
The first question a business leader has to answer
Most of the existing literature and methodologies around corporate innovation answer the questions you should be answering second or third. Questions like:
- How should my team operate? With what incentives?
- How do I design the product in such a way that it delights customers?
- How do I integrate new products to my portfolio without slowing my core business?
These are important questions to answer eventually. But in the 0-1 moment, you can get all these answers right and your product still flop. They do not address the core, fundamental question that any entrepreneur must answer:
What will a customer rip out of my hands the second I put it in front of them?
We call this the “rip-it-out-of-your-hands” test (branding is not our strength) and until you can answer this, it does not matter:
- How big your choice of market is (->0% of a huge market is $0)
- If your customers give you a “right to play” in a space (->consult the graveyard of products that “made sense on paper”)
- If your team is iterating fast (->it doesn’t matter if you're driving a Ferrari or a Model T if you’re pointed in the wrong direction)
- If your team has the right incentives (->no incentive can turn a dud product into a winner)
- How to integrate a product into your business (->if nobody wants to buy your product, none of your business assets are valuable for that product)
The “rip-it-out-of-your-hands” test is the essential starting point for product-market fit. And passing that test is the sole focus of the 0-1 Sprint.
Why the traditional product launch playbook fails
Too many businesses have followed best practices around product launches and “MVPs” and found that they are still expensive, time-and-resource-consuming, and prone to false positives.
Thoughtful leaders follow the models touted by the best VCs and corporate entrepreneurship thinkers. They do extensive customer interviews with proven scripts and methodologies, extensive studies to understand pain points and decision drivers, run lean, agile teams quarantined from the core business, involve design partners early, etc.
Sometimes, a bet is sufficiently large that leaders even hire our old employers at Bain/BCG/McKinsey or other product or design firms to create data-driven market studies that tell where to focus, what gaps exist, what customer preferences are, how to differentiate, how to price / position / market the product. Maybe even how to brand or what colors to use.
All of this preparation is meant to turn a risky bet into as close to a “sure thing” as possible.
... But even after all this preparation and investment, products are often met by lackluster results or indifference from customers and product failure (and embarrassing consequences for the brand or individuals involved in the launch).
You’re not alone. This is the same story, different chapter that thousands of failed startups have followed. These founders have also learned the hard way that there are no participation trophies in capitalism. Unless you find product-market fit, nothing else matters. And you will get no credit for doing what the business school or consulting experts recommended.
The missing element in all of this is captured here:
Before your product can take off, it has to be purchased by one person in one specific moment when that person was trying to accomplish something but was unable for some important reason.
To be clear: This is not the same as a job to be done (which does not predict the thing you care about: the purchase), and it is not the same as a pain point ("Bitchin' ain't switchin" as Bob Moesta says).
Market sizings, customer segmentations and personas, competitive positioning studies, customer surveys with fancy statistical analysis, and even design partnerships are all powerless to answer the “rip-it-out-of-your-hands” test, and worse, they often give you a sense of false confidence while actively steering you into the iceberg.
The 0-1 Sprint was designed specifically to give confidence around product-market fit. It is the closest thing to being able to see into the future as exists in business.
The 0-1 Sprint
The 0-1 Sprint was developed by Rob Snyder, author of The Power of PULL, which has turned traditional “hand-wavy” startup methodology on its head and helped dozens of bootstrapped and VC-backed startups find product-market fit in weeks, not months or years (including $0-$6M ARR in 8 weeks and $0-$25M in 2 years). The 0-1 Sprint has been used by leading startups across AI, deep tech, B2B SaaS, hardware, and consumer products, with success stories in sectors as diverse as healthcare, public sector, media, agriculture, legal and HR services, cybersecurity, and finance.
But the 0-1 Sprint is not just a methodology for startups. It’s the way to take any new product from 0-1, in less time, with a smaller team, and with lower cost incurred prior to investing in scale.
Within a few weeks, the 0-1 Sprint tells you whether you have product-market fit. If not, it gives you a chance to course correct (and know where to correct to). And if you do have product-market fit, you’ll be crystal clear about what your customers are buying from you and how to sell to them.
The essential elements of the 0-1 Sprint are:
Element 1: The unsolved project
- Project: There is a project on your customer’s to-do list that they are exerting force against
- Unsolved: Confirm with 100% certainty that they don’t already have a good-enough option (which would lead to them not buying, even if you got the project right)
Element 2: The solution-turned-case study
- Solution: Pitch the narrowest possible solution to the specific problem that the customer is struggling against
- Case Study: Package the solution in a case study tied to the customer project that you can put in front of new customers
Element 3: Confirm the market
- Confirm: Confirm product-market fit by selling to 5 different customers
The sprint’s first objective is to confirm the unsolved project + the solution-turned-case-study. After those are confirmed for a customer who buys weirdly fast or vigorously, you turn to the second objective, confirming that it is a real market opportunity and preparing to launch to the market.
The three biggest mistakes we saw in our time at Bain and McKinsey (and that we see now with VC-backed startups, and which we specifically design this 0-1 Sprint to avoid) are:
- Mistaking “market research” or “customer research” for validation of product-market fit
- Misunderstanding what the customer is struggling against (and underestimating how good existing options are)
- Thinking about the broader business before you’ve validated PMF
After you have validated product-market fit (in Elements 1, 2, and 3) you are ready to launch a product that you are confident customers will purchase, at scale. Now is the time for Element 4: to maximize the value of your product by leveraging your business’s assets, including existing customers, sales channels, brand assets, marketing expertise, and other key capabilities that every startup wishes they had at their disposal.
Putting the 0-1 Sprint into practice
The 0-1 Sprint was designed for startups operating in highly dynamic, highly uncertain, highly autonomous environments.
For elements 1 and 2 (understanding the unsolved project + solution-turned-case study) you should have one product owner, operating either alone or with a very small team (we often see that the "minimum viable product" that leads to a multi-million-dollar product is no more than a few google slides, I kid you not). The product owner should be empowered to talk with customers, to improvise, to sell, and to make changes to the product as they learn through selling to real human beings.
You can start to DIY 0-1 Sprints in your organization (and we recommend you do this. You’ll be surprised how your speed of progress changes as you implement). Here are the essential resources to get started:
- Read: The Pull framework, in detail (20 min), or listen in podcast form
- Watch: Notes on the Physics of Startups
- Read: The Power of PULL (Amazon, Barnes & Noble)
- Follow: The Physics of Startups (Substack, Podcast)
Get us involved
We have run 0-1 Sprints with dozens of startups and are being pulled into enterprises to begin to apply this methodology. If you want to work with us, reach out.
About us
Rob Snyder: Creator of the PULL framework and author of The Power of PULL, who has guided 50+ startups from $0 to $1M+ ARR.
Robert "RC" Carpenter: Two-time founder and former Bain & Company consultant, Harvard Business School MBA, who leads The 0-1 Sprint with companies.
