The exercise (do this before Lesson 4)

Take your top candidate from Lesson 2. Write four sentences:

1. "My customer is _____. Specifically: _____."
2. "Their problem shows up as the bad workaround of _____."
3. "The smallest version I could ship in 4 weekends is _____."
4. "The closest existing competitor is _____. My specific customer is poorly served by them because _____."

If you can fill all 4 in with specific, concrete answers, your candidate passes. If you can't fill one in, you need to either refine the candidate or try a different one from your Lesson 1 list.

Don't fudge. Coach Reya is going to ask you the same questions in 20 minutes and she is harder to fool than you are.

• The names of the four fakes: category, doesn't-care, out-of-reach, too-crowded.
• The 30-second test for each one.
• One candidate idea that passes all four, written as four sentences.

Lesson 4 helps you pick if you have more than one candidate that survived. If you only have one, Lesson 4 helps you sanity-check that you're betting on the right one before you walk into Coach Reya's session.

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— Coach Reya (Module 1, Wright)