The six questions before the first commitment

How to use it

Answer in writing, in plain sentences

Most first commitments go wrong in the same order. The idea is described in general terms, the cost stays vague, the stop point is never written, and the first step grows until it is no longer a first step.

The six questions below put that order back. Answer each one on paper or in a document. Leave a gap wherever you do not know the answer, because the gaps are the work.

1. What is the smallest version that could be wrong?

A good first step is small enough to abandon. Describe the cheapest version of the idea that could show you are mistaken: a conversation, a sketch of the process, or a page that describes the offer without building it.

If the smallest version still takes months, it is not yet small. Keep cutting until the test could fail in a week.

2. What must be true for this to work?

List the assumptions behind the idea. Sort them into three groups: those about people (who cares, who pays, who would tell someone else), those about cost (what it takes to deliver), and those about timing (when the problem becomes urgent).

Then rank each assumption by how cheaply you could check it. Check the cheap ones first, because a failed cheap check saves the most.

3. What does the first step cost, in money, time and attention?

Name all three. Money is the easiest to count. Time is harder, because it is usually taken from evenings and weekends that already have a use. Attention is the cost most often missed. It is the part of your week that does not come back.

Write a figure next to each cost, even a rough one. A rough figure can be argued with. A blank cannot.

4. How long can you keep going without new income?

This is the question of runway. Runway is the length of time a person or a business can keep meeting its costs before the money on hand runs out. A simple way to work it out is to divide the cash available by the amount that leaves each month after any income is taken off.

Write the number down, then write what you would do when it falls close to zero. A runway that nobody has planned for is a deadline by default.

5. Who else has to say yes?

Most early ideas need a second person: a collaborator, a first customer, a supplier, a landlord, a partner or a regulator. List everyone whose agreement you need, and what would make each of them say no.

A single missing yes can end an idea whose other parts are sound. Finding that out early is cheap. Finding it out after the first commitment is not.

6. What would make you stop, and who will hold you to it?

Write the stop condition before the work starts, while you can still think about it calmly. Make it observable: a measure you can check, a date, or a conversation that did or did not happen.

Then tell one person who will ask you about it. A stop rule you have not shared is easy to move, and a shared one is much harder to quietly drop.

Glossary

Terms worth knowing

Burn rate

The amount of money a business spends each month. Gross burn is all spending. Net burn subtracts any income received in the same month.

Runway

The period over which available cash lasts at the current rate of spending. See question four.

Pre-money valuation

The value assigned to a company before new money is added. It is a negotiated figure, and it is not a measurement of what the company is worth.

Dilution

The fall in an existing owner's percentage when new shares are issued. The number of shares held can stay the same while the slice gets smaller.

Cap table

A record of who holds which shares or other rights in a company, and on what terms.

Convertible instrument

An agreement under which money is provided now and becomes shares later, usually at a future financing, on terms set out in the document. The wording decides how it behaves, so read any such document with a qualified lawyer.

Worked example

An illustrative case in outline

The example does not say whether the idea is good. It shows how a small, reversible test can produce a clear answer before much money or attention is spent.

Next steps

Put your answers somewhere you can see them

Sketch the six answers as a branching map on the sketch pad. Each branch is a question, and each stop rule is a line drawn across the branch. If you want a second reader, write to the desk with the one question you cannot answer yet.