Kromatic logo

The Real Startup Book

Evidence-based guides and research methods from Kromatic

1.2Index of Questions

This is an abbreviated list of the questions every startup needs to answer. It is meant to prime your thinking, not to be exhaustive. Use the quadrant to figure out which kind of question yours is, then pick a method from the Index of Methods in the same quadrant.

Market Market axis: red figure holding head, representing the customer / market sideProduct Product axis: gift-wrapped box, representing the product / solution side
Generative axis: three lightbulbs, representing idea generation and exploratory research
Generative

- Who is our customer?
- What are their pains?
- What job do they need done?
- Is our customer segment too broad?
- How do we find them?

- How can we solve this problem?
- What form should this take?
- How important is the design?
- What’s the quickest solution?
- What is the minimum feature set?
- How should we prioritize?

Evaluative axis: beaker with bubbling liquid and a spark, representing experiments and measurement
Evaluative

- Are they really willing to pay?
- How much will they pay?
- How do we convince them to buy?
- How much will it cost to sell?
- Can we scale marketing?

- Is this solution working?
- Are people using it?
- Which solution is better?
- How should we optimize this?
- What do people like/dislike?
- Why do they do that with our product/service?

Don’t See Your Question?

Generic questions don’t drive useful experiments. Use this prompt with an AI assistant to land your question in the right quadrant: