Curriculum Outcomes: What You Build in the Validation Sprints

If you sell to businesses or give product demos, this sprint helps you have better sales conversations.

• Structure a discovery call that uncovers the customer’s problem before you talk about your product.
• Learn why showing your product too early can hurt the sale.
• Build a demo around the result your customer wants.
• Handle objections by giving customers the proof they need.
• Leave with a simple script to test with your next 5 potential customers.

This sprint teaches you how to guide potential customers from first awareness to their first purchase.

• Understand how customers move through each stage of a funnel.
• Find where potential customers drop off and identify why.
• Learn ways to reduce friction at each stage.
• Map the content and calls-to-action you need at each stage.
• Build a funnel where you can start testing with clear conversion metrics.

This sprint teaches you how to use the DVF framework to assess whether your business can actually work in practice.

• Understand the three parts of the DVF framework.
• Learn what feasibility means for your business.
• Identify gaps in your team, resources, or business model.
• Assess what you already have and what you still need.
• Identify the biggest feasibility constraints you need to address.

A product that people want still needs to make money. This sprint helps you see if the business makes financial sense.

• Check your margins and see what it will take to make a profit.
• Learn which unit economics matter for your business.
• Find the changes that can improve your numbers, starting with price and customer retention.
• Spot the business decisions that can make it hard to stay profitable.
• Leave with a business model that works on paper, not just in theory.

You use what you have learned to decide where your business should go next.

• Review the changes you made since Sprint 26 and see if they worked.
• Know when to keep improving your idea and when you need to make a bigger change.
• Explain how your business changed and what the evidence shows now.
• Decide if you are ready to commit or if you need one more test.
• Enter Class 6 with a concept backed by customer feedback and solid numbers.

Product-market fit is what every founder wants. This sprint helps you understand it and measure your progress.

• Learn what product-market fit means and why founders often claim it too soon.
• Track early signs of fit, including retention and willingness to pay.
• Use the Lean Product Playbook to improve your product step by step.
• See how close you are to product-market fit and decide what to do next.
• Write a product hypothesis that connects a customer need to a specific feature.

A low-fidelity prototype lets you test your core idea quickly before spending time or money on development.

• Understand what makes a low-fidelity prototype useful.
• Explore different ways to create a simple prototype.
• Focus on the features that address your customer’s main need.
• Set up a prototype test that produces useful feedback.
• Create a plan to put your prototype in front of real users.

Your minimum viable product is the simplest version of your product that tests your most important assumption with real customers.

• Learn that an MVP helps you test and learn, so building too much wastes time.
• Focus the MVP on one feature that tests your main hypothesis.
• Build the MVP, measure the results, and set it up to collect data from day one.
• Plan a launch that gets the MVP in front of real customers before you try to make it perfect.
• Leave with an MVP you have launched and clear metrics to track in the first week.

This helps digital founders define what their MVP needs before they start building.

• Define the main user journey your MVP needs to test.
• Map what belongs in the MVP and what does not.
• Choose a format that fits your product and testing needs.
• Decide what to cut when time or budget is limited.
• Create a clear MVP plan to review with your squad.

This sprint helps digital founders understand what their MVP data is telling them.

• Decide what data you need to collect.
• Understand the difference between user actions and user feedback.
• Focus on the metrics that matter most for your MVP.
• Read your results without letting expectations affect your judgment.
• Use your findings to create a hypothesis for your next version.

This masterclass helps physical product founders set up a founder’s board that fits their business.

• Choose advisors with relevant physical product experience.
• Plan board meetings around your current milestones.
• Learn how to ask advisors for useful guidance.
• Identify the decisions where you need outside input.
• Set up your board and plan your first meeting.

Your first public demo puts your idea in front of people outside your team and gives you a chance to see how they respond.

• Give a formal demo and get honest feedback on how clearly you explain your idea.
• Learn the main parts of a founder pitch, from the opening to the ask.
• Adjust your pitch for the audience, since investors and customers look for different things.
• Use tough questions to improve your story instead of trying to defend every point.
• Make specific improvements based on how the audience responds.

You put Week 1 feedback into practice and build a stronger version of your pitch.

• Focus on the changes that have the biggest effect on audience response.
• Turn your information into a story that keeps people listening.
• Use customer feedback and traction data to support your pitch.
• Adjust your pitch as you present based on how the audience responds.
• Leave with a stronger pitch and clear goals for the final two sessions.

Each time you present, you get better at explaining your business.

• Use feedback from the last two sessions to give a better demo.
• See how practice helps you feel more comfortable and focus on your audience.
• Keep your delivery natural even after you have practiced your pitch.
• Improve how you explain your financials so the numbers speak for themselves.
• Prepare for a final demo that you can deliver to any audience.