Decision Making with Magic Lenses

The Foundation Sprint is a structured two-day process (about 10 hours total) that helps teams clarify and validate their product ideas before building anything. Developed by Jake Knapp and John Zorotsky after working with hundreds of teams, it emerged from their observation that many startups fail not because of poor execution but because of unclear differentiation and strategy.

The Three Phases of a Foundation Sprint

1. Basics (First Half of Day 1)

   • Define your target customer with specificity
   • Clarify the exact problem you're solving
   • Identify all competitors (including workarounds and alternatives)
   • Document your team's unique advantages and capabilities
   • Use "work alone together" method: everyone writes answers silently, then votes
   • Designate one person as the "decider" to make final calls

2. Differentiation (Second Half of Day 1)

   • Start with "classic differentiators" (fast/slow, easy/hard, smart/not smart)
   • Create custom differentiators specific to your product and market
   • Score your solution against competitors on each differentiator
   • Create a "business school 101" two-by-two diagram showing your position
   • Aim to be in the top-right quadrant (the other three form "Loserville")
   • Develop project principles that will guide future decision-making

3. Approach (Day 2)

   • Identify multiple possible implementation paths
   • Evaluate each approach through "magic lenses":
     • Customer lens: Which approach best solves the customer problem?
     • Pragmatic lens: Which approach is fastest/cheapest to build?
     • Growth lens: Which approach reaches customers fastest?
     • Financial lens: Which approach creates most long-term value?
     • Differentiation lens: Which approach best delivers on your differentiators?
     • Conviction lens: Which approach are you most excited to build?
   • If one option wins across most lenses, choose it
   • If no clear winner, decide which lens matters most and choose based on that
   • Identify a backup plan in case your first choice doesn't work

The Output: Your Founding Hypothesis

• Combine all decisions into a single hypothesis statement:
  • "If we solve [PROBLEM] for [CUSTOMER] with [APPROACH], we think they'll choose it over [COMPETITORS] because of [DIFFERENTIATOR 1] and [DIFFERENTIATOR 2]."
• This hypothesis becomes the foundation for testing through design sprints

Why This Process Works

• Alignment: Forces team to make explicit what's often implicit and misaligned
• Focus: Prevents wasting time building something nobody wants
• Efficiency: Saves months of work by testing ideas before building
• Differentiation: Ensures your product stands out in a crowded market
• Clarity: Creates a decision-making framework for the entire team
• Speed: While it feels slow in the moment, it accelerates overall progress

Common Pitfalls This Process Prevents

• Building generic AI products that don't stand out
• Rushing to code without clear differentiation
• Getting locked into the first design concept
• Different team members having different visions
• Focusing on technology rather than customer value
• Failing to identify what truly matters to customers

The Foundation Sprint is followed by 2-3 weeks of Design Sprints where you build and test prototypes with real customers, iterating on your hypothesis until everything "clicks."