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Part of Founder readiness: a written stop rule, three jobs covered, commitments postponed
The founder readiness questions worth asking before anything else
Founder readiness questions arranged by gate, so you answer only what blocks the next decision, and every answer is one somebody else could check.
Readiness questions get asked all at once, usually late at night, and the answers do not go anywhere. The useful version is smaller: a short set attached to each decision, asked at the moment that decision is in front of you, and answered in writing.
What follows is arranged by gate rather than by theme, and it assumes you already know what readiness actually consists of. Nothing here asks how confident you feel, because that answer carries no information.
What to take away
- Ask the questions that gate the next decision, not all of them at once. Most have no answer yet and do not need one.
- A good readiness question has an answer someone else could check. If yours can only be answered by a feeling, rewrite it.
- The questions get harder as the commitments get less reversible, which is the right way round.
Gate one: before the first conversation
These cost nothing and prevent most of the wasted months.
Gate one
- Who exactly am I talking to, and can I name three of them without looking anyone up?
- What do I want to learn that a search or a message could not already tell me?
- What could someone say that would disappoint me enough to change the plan?
- What will I do with each answer, and who writes it down?
Gate one: before the first conversation
- Who exactly has this problem?
- How will I reach them?
- What would I have to hear to be disappointed?
- What do they do today, and what does it cost?
The third one is load-bearing. If nothing anyone could say would disappoint you, the conversations are not going to produce information.
Gate two: before you spend money
Money spent before this gate is nearly always spent on the feeling of having started.
Gate two
- What exactly is this spend buying, and what would show it bought nothing?
- What is the smallest spend that tests the same thing?
- How much is going out in total once subscriptions and follow-on costs are counted?
- If this returns nothing, what else could that money have done, and who else is affected by the answer?
Gate two: before you spend money
- What will I know after this spend?
- Could I get the same answer for less?
- What is the notice period and exit cost?
- What does failure cost in money, months, standing?
Ask the fourth one out loud. Written down it is a budget line. Said aloud it is a decision. Most of what gets bought at this gate could have been replaced by a smaller offer put in front of a real buyer.
Gate three: before you leave your income
- What has to be paid every month whatever happens, counted honestly?
- How many months can I cover from money already set aside, not money I expect to earn? The SBA's guide to funding a business is worth reading first, mostly to see how few of the routes apply before there is any trading history.
- What can I lose entirely without a consequence I would refuse to accept?
- How long would it take to get back to earning what I earn now, and what would I have to keep current to make that possible?
- Who else is affected, do they know the real number, and have they agreed to it rather than been told?
The SBA is a United States agency, so readers outside the US should look for the equivalent in their own country.
The last one ends more ventures than any commercial mistake. Agreement in month one is cheap. Discovery in month eight is not.
Gate three: before you leave your income
- What must be paid every month whatever happens?
- How many months can I cover from money set aside?
- What can I lose entirely without refusing the consequence?
- How long to get back to earning what I earn now?
- Who else is affected, and have they agreed?
Gate four: before you bring in another person
- Who decides what, in the cases where we disagree?
- What is each of us committing, in hours and in money, and by when?
- How is ownership earned over time rather than granted on day one?
- What happens if one of us wants out, and who buys whom?
- Which of the three jobs is nobody coveringwanting it enough, selling it, and making it?
Write the answers while everyone is optimistic. The same conversation later happens with something at stake and a lawyer in the room.
Gate four: before bringing in another person
- Who decides what when we disagree?
- What is each of us committing, in hours and money?
- How is ownership earned over time?
- What happens if one of us wants out?
- Which of the three jobs is nobody covering?
Questions that sound rigorous and are not
Questions that sound rigorous
| The question | Why it produces nothing | Ask instead |
|---|---|---|
| Would you use this? | Measures politeness and costs the answerer nothing | What did you do the last time this came up? |
| How much would you pay? | Invites a guess presented as a fact | What did you spend on this last year, and on what? |
| Is the market big enough? | Four questions in one, answered as though it were one | Who can I reach, through what channel, at what cost? |
| Am I passionate enough? | Unfalsifiable, and no help on the hard days | Will I still be making these calls in month seven? |
| Is now the right time? | Timing is not knowable in advance | Is the first commitment small enough that timing does not decide it? |
| Do I have enough experience? | Too broad to act on | What am I actually missing: access to buyers, or the ability to deliver? |
The pattern in the right-hand column is the same each time: swap a judgment for something observable. How heavily wording moves an answer is set out in the guidance on writing survey questions. Market validation does the same trick with a bigger question.
Questions that sound rigorous and are not
The question
- Would you use this?
- What did you do last time?
- How much would you pay?
- What did you spend last year?
- Is the market big enough?
- Who can I reach, at what cost?
- Am I passionate enough?
- Will I still make calls in month seven?
- Is now the right time?
- Is the first commitment small enough?
- Do I have enough experience?
- What am I missing: access or delivery?
Ask instead
- Would you use this?
- How much would you pay?
- Is the market big enough?
- Am I passionate enough?
- Is now the right time?
- Do I have enough experience?
How to answer them
In writing, dated, in one place. Not because the document is valuable, but because written answers are much harder to revise quietly than remembered ones, and quiet revision is what turns a stopping condition into a permission slip.
Half of these have no answer at the start, and that is not a failure. A blank next to "how will I reach them" is a task, not a verdict.
Then give one person outside the venture your gate three and gate four answers. Not a co-founder, who has your incentives. Somebody with nothing at stake, who will ask you about the number in four months.
Common questions
What if I cannot answer most of these?
Then you are early, which is the normal state. The list becomes a work queue: each blank is something you can go and find out, and almost all of it is cheap. None of it requires you to have built anything.
Should I answer them again later?
Answer gate one every time you enter a new segment, because the audience changed even if the idea did not. The money questions want a fixed review date, and monthly is enough. The rest are answered once per decision.
Who should I not ask for help with these?
Anyone whose approval you want. That includes most friends and family, who will answer the question they think you are really asking. Situations you will recognize shows how that support gets mistaken for evidence.
Is there a threshold that means I am ready?
No, and any tool offering one is scoring your own inputs back at you. Readiness is a set of arrangements: a loss ceiling written down, a stop rule someone is holding, and the irreversible commitments postponed. The tools worth using are the ones that keep those honest.
