Questions you can carry forward.

What does the problem cost people when no one solves it?

Which part of the problem will you own even when it is slow, expensive, and thankless?

Which precise and enduring problem in people's lives has the company made its North Star?

Has the problem become clearer, or has the company merely learned to explain itself better?

Who is already living in the future you expect more people to approach?

Is the market not yet ready for the product, or is the product not yet ready for the market?

What in the surroundings prevents the customer from experiencing the product's value?

Which cause of the recurring problem can the company actually influence?

What could disprove the explanation you most want to believe?

What is the difference between what you expected and what actually happened?

What do you know for certain about how the customer's problem must be solved, and what have you merely inherited from the market's usual solutions?

Which constraints around the product can the company not change, and which does it follow only out of habit?

What can I do with your product?

What should make your first customer think, That product was made for someone like me, when it stands among the market's many alternatives?

Which concrete action must the customer be able to perform with your MVP before you can see whether the solution creates value?

Which commitments can you postpone while your MVP tests the most important assumption without failing those already taking part in the test?

Are you asking the customer what they might do in the future, or what actually happened the last time the problem arose?

What can you learn when what the customer says does not match what they do or repeat over time?

Which problem can your startup neither understand nor solve alone?

What responsibility does the introduction you want place on the person opening the door?

Which important disagreement or piece of knowledge within the team remains unspoken even though it could change the company's decision?

If the person the company depends on most left the team tomorrow, what could the others continue, and which critical knowledge would leave with that person?

In which surroundings does your product become more relevant without the product changing?

Which assumption about customer needs, ability to pay, or willingness to switch must be true for the company's plan to work?

Is your product one component that another company must build into its solution, or is it the complete solution the end customer uses and evaluates?

If customers forgot the product's name, which result would they still miss and try to achieve again?

How do your best customers discover the product?

How must the product move from the person experiencing the problem to the person who can approve and pay for it?

If the KPI improves while reality gets worse, which one will you believe?

Which specific action do you expect will create the desired change for the customer or the company?

Which part of the company's momentum is borrowed from a campaign, discount, relationship, or event?

Which results are you comparing across periods or customer groups even though price, season, campaigns, or market access were different?

If money is time, which future is the company buying, and which one is it using up?

How long can the company continue if customers pay later than expected?

How much time passes between the company's action and that action being recorded, reconciled, and understood well enough to influence the next decision?

Which weakness is currently being hidden by growth or busyness?

Which work looks free in the bank account but consumes the future of the owner or the team?

Which bill can the company pay on paper, but not on the day the money actually has to leave the account?

Once customers get the product into their hands, does it solve their problem well enough for distribution to be the company's real constraint?

Is the product distributed when the customer has received it, or only when the customer can use it and experience the value without the founder's help?

Which part of the past helps you understand, and which part have you allowed to lead?

If you could choose someone you know and exchange your entire life for theirs, from beginning to end, would you do it?