Audience: B2B Founders venturing into SAAS or Product Managers building a new product
Purpose: Identify the riskiest assumption and test the hypothesis if the risk is real or can be mitigated. Build your product after you have understood the risk.
How to use: List all the risks associated with your product or company. Imagine that if this risk happens, your company will shut down. There are external risks as well as internal risks. Below is a starting point. But add your own context.
Rank all the risks.
Which one is the riskiest today? Solve for that first.
Then move on to the next riskiest assumption. At any given point in time, there is one risk which is the riskiest.
Read the companion article : https://bit.ly/44hTtoy
External Risks
External risks are related to market or customers. To test these risks, you will need to venture out and speak to prospects or other experts.
Internal Risks
Internal risks happen based on your own technology or processes
Legend:
Risk Hypothesis - List all the risks associated with your company. Think of all the reasons that your company ceases to exist. Be pessimistic.
Ranking - Relative to each other, which is a higher risk. #1 is the riskiest assumption at any point.
Test Process - For each risk, identify a test to prove the risk. For example, if the risk is there is no demand, then test by interviewing at least 10-20 prospects.