Framework
The Pirate Test
Steve's model for early customers and early feedback.
How it works
- 1First users are pirates by nature: they ignore the standard way of doing things and try the unfinished thing on purpose.
- 2Be aggressively honest about where the product actually is, because pirates recalibrate their expectations when you do.
- 3They hand you flavors you didn't think of, and they tell you when it sucks.
- 4Falling in love with this feedback stage is the antidote to falling in love with your own solution.
- 5Pirates have to be cultivated deliberately — Steve keeps a standing group of seven or eight entrepreneurs on a monthly Zoom for exactly this purpose.
Hear it on the podcast
How to Automate a Board of Advisors for $29 a MonthListen to the episodeMore from this episode
Founder First, CEO SecondSteve's annual, public re-evaluation of his own fitness for the CEO seat.The Conflicting Counsel ModelThe design principle behind the CEOfriend personas, built to disagree with each other on purpose.Work on the Business, Not in the BusinessThe corrective to a founder's default state of urgency.The 20% Better MissionCEOfriend's stated reason for existing, and why the price ceiling is deliberate.
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More frameworks for Finding & Validating Ideas
The Repeatable Process TestHow she picked stationery over everything else.The Math of Human LikenessHer own term for sizing the market.The Laggard ArbitrageEveryone is racing to serve early adopters. Dan buys the other end of the curve.Ugly But UsefulThe founding validation test.The Mayan Village TestRyan's field-observed framework for durable demand.The Reframe QuestionThe single question that converted Brad from a frustrated patient into a founder.