Custom Differentiators Create New Customer Reality

The Foundation Sprint is a structured two-day process for product teams to align on and validate their core product hypothesis before building anything. Developed by Jake Knapp and John Zorotsky after working with hundreds of teams, it helps teams avoid wasting time building the wrong product.

Core Structure (10 hours over 2 days)

• Phase 1: Basics - Establish foundational elements

  • Define target customer with specificity
  • Identify the core problem you're solving
  • Map the competitive landscape (including workarounds and alternatives)
  • Articulate your unique advantages and capabilities

• Phase 2: Differentiation - Determine how you'll stand out

  • Start with "classic differentiators" (fast/slow, easy/hard, etc.)
  • Create custom differentiators specific to your product and market
  • Score your product against competitors on each differentiator
  • Select 2-3 strongest differentiators where you can truly excel
  • Create a "business school 101" quadrant chart positioning you in the top right
  • Develop project principles that will guide decision-making

• Phase 3: Approach - Choose implementation path

  • Map multiple possible implementation approaches
  • Evaluate each approach through "magic lenses":
    • Customer lens (ease of use vs. perfect solution)
    • Pragmatic lens (cheap/fast to build vs. complete)
    • Growth lens (easy to adopt vs. difficult)
    • Financial lens (monetization potential)
    • Differentiation lens (delivers on key differentiators)
    • Team conviction lens (excitement level for building)
  • Select primary approach and backup plan

Key Principles

• Work alone together - Use "note and vote" technique where everyone works silently, then shares and votes

  • Prevents groupthink and social dynamics from dominating
  • Ensures all perspectives are considered
  • Enables faster, higher-quality decision-making

• Explicit decision-making - Designate one person as the "decider" who makes final calls

  • Prevents endless debates
  • Creates clear accountability
  • Allows rapid progress through difficult decisions

• Differentiation is essential - Products must stand out to overcome customer inertia

  • People naturally ignore new products unless they have a compelling reason not to
  • Differentiation must be from the customer's perspective, not yours
  • Must be both achievable and meaningful to customers

• Slow down to speed up - Taking time upfront prevents wasted effort

  • Teams that skip this process often build generic, undifferentiated products
  • AI-generated products are particularly prone to being generic
  • The more AI-assisted your building process, the more important upfront thinking becomes

• Test before building - Follow Foundation Sprint with Design Sprints

  • Use the hypothesis to create testable prototypes
  • Score results against your founding hypothesis
  • Iterate weekly until you see consistent "green" signals

The Founding Hypothesis Format

"If we solve [PROBLEM] for [CUSTOMER] with [APPROACH], we think they'll choose it over [COMPETITORS] because of [DIFFERENTIATOR 1] and [DIFFERENTIATOR 2]."

This single sentence encapsulates your entire product strategy and creates alignment across the team.

When to Use This Framework

• When starting a new product or company
• When you have multiple possible approaches but aren't sure which to pursue
• When you're locked into one approach but want to validate it's the right one
• When team members have different visions of what you're building and why
• Before investing significant engineering resources

The Foundation Sprint provides the highest ROI on time spent in the early stages of product development, potentially saving months of wasted effort building the wrong thing.