But sometimes customers do have a real problem; it’s just that nobody has offered a reasonable solution yet. In these situations, you’re competing with nothing. These are the riskiest opportunities, but also the most exciting.

Design Sprints are awesome for solving problems and testing ideas, but in the early days of a new company, founders need a different kind of help. They need a plan for standing out from the competition. And they need to choose a direction and get started—as fast as possible.

Turn your differentiators into principles When you create a 2x2 chart, you end up with two strong differentiators—which can easily turn into two strong principles.

Keep wordsmithing to a minimum

Start with direct competitors First, write down the other companies or products that more or less solve your customer’s problem. This is the standard definition of “competitor,” and it should be easy.

We looked for patterns in the most successful projects we’ve seen firsthand as designers and investors. We realized these patterns could help any kind of big new project—not just startups. So we reverse-engineered those patterns into a new sprint format that we call the Foundation Sprint. We call it the Foundation Sprint because it creates the

10. Experiment with tiny loops until your solution clicks. Then build it.

First up is capability. Capability is what you can do that few can match.

So how do you run those experiments? With Design Sprints! If