John Zorotsky
Designer, Author, Entrepreneur, and Co-founder of Character
John Zeratsky is a designer, author, and entrepreneur known for co-creating the Design Sprint process. He has worked with over 300 startups to help them validate ideas and accelerate their growth. John is also a co-founder of Character, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups.
Episodes (1)
Insights (6)
Foundation Sprint Prevents Premature Ideation
strategic thinkingJohn says running a Foundation Sprint keeps teams from ideating too soon and forces clarity on why they are unique and which market they target before prototyping.
Pricing Rarely Works as Durable Differentiator
leadership perspectivesJohn argues pricing is seldom the strongest or most durable differentiator, especially against resource-rich rivals, unless AI unlocks step-change cost drops.
Free Miro Template for Foundation Sprints
growth scaling tacticsJohn offers a Miro template so founders can run their own foundation sprints and speed up product-market fit.
Foundation Sprint Addresses Lack of Clarity in Pre-Seed Teams
case studies lessonsSeeing pre-seed teams lack clarity on problem, customer and competitors led Character to invent the foundation sprint method.
AI Can't Replace Differentiation Thinking
leadership perspectivesEven with AI building the mock-ups, teams must craft the copy and differentiation themselves.
Engineers Gain More Value By Testing Before Coding
leadership perspectivesEngineer founders gain more value by clarifying differentiation and testing with customers before writing code.