Go through all the classics and consider how your solution might stack up against the competition.

The next step in the Foundation Sprint is identifying the competition. Like the other Basics, this is so obvious that most teams skip it when forming their strategy. Or they dismiss the competition, naively assuming their new solution will be so good that customers will forget the alternatives.

How many principles should you write? I think a good number is three. I suggest using the “Differentiate, differentiate, safeguard” formula: one principle for each of your two differentiators (from chapter 5), plus one to protect against the unintended consequences of building a product that’s successful in an unfortunate way.

In practice, the Magic Lenses activity works a lot like the differentiation activity—but instead of one chart, you’ll create several, and instead of competitors, you’ll plot your own competing approaches. Here’s how we do it:

If you talk to five or ten or fifteen people in your market and your solution doesn’t click with any of them, that’s clearly bad news. If, on the other hand, your solution clicks with most or all of them? That’s exciting. That, my friends, is a hell of a lot better than trusting a hunch for a year (or more) while you wait to get perfect data. Becau

When you’re finished identifying the customer and problem, ask the team: “Does this make sense?”

After you’ve written down your known options, come up with some new ones. If you feel stuck, try answering these questions: What would happen if your project hit a dead end? How would you solve your customers’ problem if you couldn’t do it the way you want? Or imagine a new competitor comes along to solve the same problem for the same customer. How

Use your unique advantage The best differentiators are at the intersection of what is super valuable to customers and what you can uniquely deliver. Even though it’s obvious, I find it helpful to draw that as a Venn diagram for teams:

capability + insight + motivation = unique advantage