Product Pieces.
Free tool · for founders

What's the one assumption that could sink it?

Every startup rests on a stack of things you believe but haven't proven. List them, rate each on how much it matters and how much evidence you have, and The Leap finds the one you should test first, before you build the rest.

Your assumptions Impact × uncertainty
DDesirability. Will they actually want it? VViability. Does the money work? FFeasibility. Can you build and run it?
The assumption map
Add a few assumptions and rate them. The one that matters most and rests on the least evidence lands top-right, and that's the one to test first.
How it works: risk is impact multiplied by uncertainty. An assumption that would sink the business if it's wrong, and that you have almost no evidence for, is a leap of faith. Those sit top-right on the map and get tested first, with the cheapest experiment that could prove you wrong. Everything you can already back with evidence, or that barely matters, can wait. Tag each one as Desirability (will they want it), Viability (does the money work) or Feasibility (can you build and deliver it). New to this? The full method is here.

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About this tool

What The Leap does.

List what has to be true for the company to work, place each belief on an impact-against-evidence grid, and it surfaces the ones that carry the most weight and the least proof. For each of those it proposes the cheapest experiment that would settle it. Most roadmaps are a list of things to build. This is the list of things you are quietly betting on.

Who it is for. Founders about to commit months of build to a plan, and teams whose roadmap has never been tested against the assumption underneath it. If you cannot name your riskiest assumption in one sentence, that is the reason to open it.

What it will not do. It will not run the experiment for you or rank your ideas commercially. It sorts belief from evidence, which is the step most plans skip on the way to a build.

What counts as a riskiest assumption?
The belief that, if wrong, makes everything else irrelevant. Usually it is that a specific person has this problem badly enough to change what they do about it, and often it is that they would pay.
How cheap should the experiment be?
Cheaper than you think, and days rather than sprints. A price sent to three engaged users, ten interviews, a landing page, a concierge version done by hand. If testing the assumption costs as much as building the thing, you have picked the wrong test.
How does this relate to the three-month rule?
Nothing should run more than three months of build without a real user meeting it. The Leap defines what that user has to do for the bet to count, before the clock starts.
Product Pieces · Senior product, by the piece. productpieces.io