Rules
Part of Why your own first hundred days rarely go in a straight line
First 100 days checklist for the day 30, 60 and 100 reviews
A first 100 days checklist for three review days: what to check at day 30, 60 and 100, the pass condition for each item, and how to mark a not yet.
A checklist run every day turns into a mood. A checklist run on three fixed review days turns into a record. Day 30, day 60 and day 100 each ask a different question, and every item has a pass condition that somebody else could check against what you have on file.
The set-up work is covered in what the records must allow. This list starts where that one stops, with the questions about customers, delivery and money that only become answerable once the days have passed.
What to take away
- Three review days, three questionscan a stranger buy and receive it, are the first arrivals staying, does the arithmetic hold.
- An item passes or it does not. Partial credit is how a hundred days ends with nothing established.
- Items you cannot answer yet are not failures. Mark them not yet and write the date they become answerable.
Before day 30: what the reviews lean on
Review days only work if five instruments already exist. Nothing about the product can be learned in the first ten days, but whether you will be able to learn anything later is already decided by then.
Days 1-10: The Instruments
- Arrival record existsroute and warm/cold separated
- Cohort marker existsevery customer carries arrival date
- Question log existsall inbound questions searchable with date
- Cancellation path worksstop paying without contacting you
- Claim list currentevery factual statement has a source
The five are the arrival record, the cohort marker, the question log, a cancellation path that works and a current claim list. Here they matter only as inputs. A review item that needs one of them cannot pass while it is missing.
Day 30 review: can a stranger buy it and receive it?
Day 30 tests comprehension and delivery, not demand. The question is whether someone outside the team can get from the first page to the promised result without your help, and whether you can then repeat the delivery.
- Someone outside the team has completed the whole path unaided.Passes when you watched it happen and said nothing. Fails if you explained anything.
- You can state what customers thought they were buying.Passes when you have it in five people's own words and at least one differs from your description. If all five match your marketing exactly, you have been leading them.
- Delivery has happened at least once end to end.Passes when a customer received what was promised, on the promised schedule, without heroics.
- The delivery ceiling is written down.Passes when you can say how many customers you can serve this month before quality falls, and the number came from an actual attempt rather than an estimate.
- Every question in the log has been grouped once.Passes when the log has categories and you can name the largest one. The largest category is your next piece of work, and it is rarely the loudest.
If the five descriptions drift from yours, change the copy before you change the product. Advertisers also need a reasonable basis for advertising claims before those claims are disseminated, so the rewritten copy should promise only what you can show.
Getting those five descriptions takes short customer interviews after purchase, with the question asked plainly and the answer written down in the buyer's words rather than yours.
Delivery on schedule is the test of a minimum viable offer, and goods sold remotely carry a rule about it. The FTC's order rule requires a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. A recorded delivery attempt is that basis.
Day 60 review: are the first arrivals staying?
Day 60 is the first point where retention becomes readable, and only for the people who arrived in weeks one and two. A count over a count is a result. A rate on its own is not.
- The first cohort has been measured separately.Passes when you can say how many of the people who arrived in weeks one and two are still active, as a count over a count.
- Every cancellation has been asked why.Passes at one hundred per cent asked, not one hundred per cent answered. The asking is what you control.
- You know what the leavers had in common.Passes when you can state it, or state honestly that there is no pattern yet because the number is too small.
- The escalation rule has been checked.Passes when someone has compared the rule written on day one against what happened and recorded the comparison, including when the answer is that the rule was not triggered.
- A second cohort exists to compare against.Passes when you have people who arrived after the launch noise and can be read separately from those who arrived during it.
The weekly loop in the first 100 days framework includes a written escalation rule. The day 60 item is the comparison of that rule with what the weeks actually produced, written down while the weeks are still fresh.
Day 100 review: does the arithmetic hold?
Day 100 asks for arithmetic you can defend: what one customer cost to win, what is left after serving them, and whether one full cycle has been observed. Where a figure cannot exist yet, the honest entry says so.
- You can state the cost of acquiring one customer through a repeatable route.Passes when your own hours are priced into it. Fails when the only route is your personal network, in which case the honest entry is that the figure does not exist yet.
- You can state margin per customer after the cost of serving them.Passes when support and rework are included.
- You have observed one full cycle.Passes when at least one customer has reached the point where they either renewed, repeated, or did not.
- The price has been said to a stranger at least ten times.Passes on the count of sayings, not the count of yeses.
- You have written what would change your mind.Passes when the sentence exists, is dated, and names an observation rather than a feeling.
One-time costs and recurring costs behave differently in the margin item. Only the recurring ones bear on whether this works at volume, so list them apart. Offer testing metrics shows how to keep each denominator visible while you do the sums.
What to do with the refusals from the price item is the substance of pricing validation. The list only asks that the refusals were heard ten times and written down.
One page for all three reviews
Keep the three reviews on a single sheet, so the next one starts from the last. Each row names the evidence that has to be on file, and the last column says what to write when it is not.
| Review | Question | Evidence on file | If you cannot answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 30 | Can a stranger buy and receive it? | One unaided path watched, five buyer descriptions, one delivery | Not yet, with the date the first delivery is due |
| Day 60 | Are the first arrivals staying? | Counts for the first cohort, a why note for each cancellation | Not yet, with the date a full cycle completes |
| Day 100 | Does the arithmetic hold? | Cost per customer with hours priced, margin, ten price sayings | State that the figure does not exist yet |
What the reviews expose when set-up was skipped
Three set-up items get skipped more than any others, for the same reason: none of them produces anything on the day you do them. The reviews are where the cost finally shows up.
Three Items Nearly Everyone Skips
Item
- Cohort marker
- Costs a minute on day two
- Cancellation question
- Uncomfortable; answers arrive when you feel worst
- Warm/cold arrival record
- Everyone is warm in first fortnight
Why skipped
- Cohort marker
- Cannot be recovered on day forty
- Cancellation question
- No pattern from leavers
- Warm/cold arrival record
- Too late to reconstruct by week eight
Cost of skipping
- Cohort marker
- Cancellation question
- Warm/cold arrival record
The cohort marker costs a minute on day two and cannot be recovered on day forty, so the day 60 cohort item stays a permanent not yet without it. The cancellation question is uncomfortable, and its answers arrive during the weeks you feel worst.
The separate record of warm and cold arrivals feels academic in the first fortnight, because everyone is warm. It stops feeling academic in week eight, when it is too late to reconstruct. Without it, the leavers item has nothing honest to say.
What passing means
Passing does not mean the venture works. It means the hundred days produced answers rather than activity, and that the next decision has evidence under it.
A checklist with eleven passes and four honest not yet entries is in far better shape than one with fifteen soft yeses. The four name what you still owe yourself.
Common questions
What if we have too few customers for any of the retention items?
Then those items are not yet, and the work is upstream, in reach. Do not convert three people into a percentage. Write the fraction, note the date you will look again, and move on to the next item.
Is a hundred days the right length?
It is long enough for one full cycle in most businesses and short enough to stay honest. If your buying cycle is longer than that, extend the last group and say so in the plan rather than pretending the window was decisive.
Who should own the checklist?
One person, and preferably not the person who owns the product, because the items about comprehension and cancellation are the ones a product owner is least able to score coldly.
Can items be added?
Yes, at the start. Adding an item in week nine that you have just passed is how a checklist becomes a record of what you did rather than a test of it.
