Co-founder & CEO
Written by
Elena Varga
Published
Reading time
7 min read
Category
Process
Why ten days
Most products do not fail because the code is bad. They fail because the team built the wrong thing for too long. A short, fixed discovery window forces the hard conversations early, while changing direction is still cheap.
Ten working days is long enough to talk to real users and test a few risky ideas. It is short enough that nobody falls in love with a plan.
Days one to three: understand the problem
We start with a kickoff workshop and a stack of interviews. We talk to the people who will use the product, the people who will sell it and the people who will support it. By the end of day three we have a one-page problem statement everyone has signed.
Days four to seven: shape the solution
Designers and engineers sketch together. We map the core user journey, pick the riskiest assumption and build a clickable prototype to test it. Engineers run small technical spikes in parallel, so the prototype never promises something the stack cannot deliver.
Days eight to ten: plan the build
We turn what we learned into a scoped roadmap with clear milestones, a recommended team and a budget range. You leave with three things:
→ A tested prototype you can show to investors and users
→ A technical plan with the main risks called out
→ A fixed quote for the first release
What it costs you
About two hours a day from one decision maker on your side. That is the only rule we are strict about. Discovery without a decision maker in the room just produces nice documents.