| Name | Mich Dam |
|---|---|
| Explain your Big Idea in one sentence. | Customizable rock-climbing surface that lets climbers dynamically adjust route difficulty and texture to simulate indoor or outdoor conditions, making training more personalized, accessible, and realistic. |
| 1. Pain of the Customer | |
| 1. Who’s your target customer? | Rock climbers who train indoors and outdoors, and care about improving their skills, safety, and experience |
| 2. What’s the job your customer is trying to perform? | Trying to practice and improve their climbing technique in a way that feels realistic, safe, and tailored to their skill level |
| 3. What’s the pain your customer is experiencing while doing the job? | Inconsistent grading systems make it hard to measure progress or match climbs to ability. Crowded gyms and limited rout variety reduce access and enjoyment. High costs and lack of injury support or hygiene make climbing less accessible and comfortable. Awkward social dynamics create stress when climbing with others. |
| 4. How big is the pain the customer is feeling? | 1 Mosquito Bite |
| 5. How often are customers feeling the pain? | 1 Infrequently |
| 6. What’s the pain score? | 1 |
| 7. How much market knowledge do you have to understand the pain? | Varsity |
| 2. Potential of the Market | |
| 1. How many customers are experiencing the pain? | 4 Millions |
| 2. Sustainability? Can you provide the solution to customers profitably? | 4 Most Likely |
| 3. What’s the current overall size and growth of the market? | 4 Big & Fast |
| 4. Will your solution greatly affect the size and growth of the market? | 5 Yes |
| 5. What are the key growth drivers for the market? | Changes in consumer behavior, technology, cultural momentum, healthy and safety awareness |
| 6. What’s the financial potential of a business that solves the pain? | 12 Lifestyle |
| 3. Prescription for the Pain | |
| 1. What’s the name of your proposed solution to the pain? | AscendIQ |
| 2. Describe your proposed solution to the pain and its key benefits. | Customizable climbing wall system where climbers can adjust the difficulty, texture, and layout of routes using movable holds and surface panels. This mimics both indoor and outdoor rock conditions, helping climbers train more realistically, measure progress more accurately, and reduce frustration with inconsistent grading. |
| 3. How distinct is your solution from what already exits? | 5 Night & Day |
| 4. What types of innovation are you using to differentiate yourself? |
|
| Other | |
| 5. What are the primary differentiators of your solution? | Grading adjustment to match skill level, realistic surface textures that simulate outdoor rock. hygiene and safety features, design that accommodates climbers of different heights and abilities. |
| 6. How much domain expertise do you have to solve the pain? | Varsity |
| 4. Positioning in the Market | |
| 1. What does the competitive landscape (jungle) look like? | Apes |
| 2. Name the current market gorilla. | Walltopia |
| 2.1 No Market Gorilla | |
| 3. Are you competing head on with a gorilla for the same customer? | No |
| 4. Who goes out of business if you win? | Traditional wall builders who don't innovate, low tech home wall kits, training tools |
| 5. Based on the proposed solution, what’s your market-entry strategy? | Disruptive Strategy |
| Face Punch | Compete head-to-head with market leaders for existing customers with a solution that is similar to existing offerings (i.e., no innovation). |
| Greenfield | Create a brand new market category where competition is non-existent; create new customers and draw customers in from other markets. |
| Bolt-on | Extend an existing market by adding a product or service onto the market’s current offerings; partner with market leader (i.e., incremental innovation) |
| Geographic | Import proven business models and innovations from one country to another (i.e., geographic innovation). |
| Breakthrough | Develop products that are 10x better than market leaders; competing for same customers with high “switching costs” (i.e., 10x innovation). |
| Disruptive | Target unmet needs of underserved customers at the low end of an existing market; competitors flee up market rather than fight for the low end. |
| 5. Path to the Exit | |
| 1. How large is the universe of potential buyers for the company? | 5 A Hundred |
| 2. Who are the top likely potential buyers of the company? | Walltopia, Planet Granite, ERI/North Face, Military training programs |
| 3. Do you plan to engage in partnerships with them? If so, how? | Yes, I could start with installing climbing gyms or schools. Partnerships could include training zones, licensing the surface tech, fitness apps, and much more. |
| 4. Do you currently have access to relevant distribution channels? | Sort of |
| 5. What’s the overall likelihood of the company becoming acquired? | 4 Very Likely |
| The Big Idea Hypothesis | The output of this worksheet is to create a hypothesis that you can go out and test. Writing down a Big Idea Hypothesis forces you to focus and clarify what you believe before you talk to potential customers or build prototypes (see Nail It Then Scale It, p. 69-73). The best tool we have found for formulating your Big Idea Hypothesis is found in Geoffrey Moore’s book, Crossing the Chasm. Moore calls it the “elevator message,” but we use it for the Big Idea Hypothesis. The steps of the Big Idea Hypothesis are:
EXAMPLE 1 – Using this format, let’s take a look at a potential Big Idea Hypothesis for Surf Air, a subscription-based airline startup headquartered in Santa Monica, CA. “(1) For the frequent, wealthy business traveler (2) who dislikes the airport experience, specifically checking in, going through security, waiting at the terminal, and picking up luggage, yet doesn’t have enough wealth to buy a private jet, (3) Surf Air is an airline that (4) allows the traveler to skip all the hassle of the airport experience and have access to a private jet experience without the cost. (5) Unlike traditional airlines, Surf Air (6) is a subscription-based airline, which employs small, luxury planes that can be used by customers like private jets.” EXAMPLE 2 – As an another example, the following is the Big Idea Hypothesis Paul Ahlstrom created for his software company, Knowlix. “(1) For the Internal IT Help Desk managers of large corporations who (2) have dissatisfied customers and are out of compliance with their Customers’ Service Level Agreements because each front-line support representative is unable to capture and share knowledge so they can answer customers’ technical questions and problems in a timely manner, (3) Knowlix is an IT Knowledge Management Solution that (4) allows the front-line IT Customer Support Reps to capture issues within their existing workflow and provide accurate answers in real-time to their corporate customers. (5) Unlike Inference, Knowlix (6) integrates large amounts of unstructured data into the existing workflow of Remedy, Peregrine, and other leading IT Help Desk systems, thus allowing the frontline support rep to answer the question on the first call.” |
| Your Big Idea Hypothesis | Now that you have a foundational understanding of the Big Idea Hypothesis, let’s create one for your big idea (see Nail It Then Scale It, p. 71). By using the answers you provided on the other side of this Canvas, you can piece together a Big Idea Hypothesis that will help focus your efforts and share a clear message as you talk about your big idea with others. So let’s go retrieve each step of the Big Idea Hypothesis. |
| 1. For (target customer): | |
| 2. Who (statement of monetizable pain): | |
| 3. The (product name) is a (product category): | |
| 4. That (statement of key benefit): | |
| 5. Unlike (primary competitive alternative): | |
| 6. Our Solution (solution and primary differentiation): | |
| With all the steps identified and written down, you can now stitch them together to create one, unified Big Idea Hypothesis. Give it a try below. | For (1) rock climbers who train indoors and outdoors and care about improving their skills, safety, and experience, who (2) struggle with inconsistent grading systems, overcrowded gyms, limited route variety, high costs, and a lack of injury support or hygiene standards, (3) AscendIQ is (4) customizable climbing wall system that allows climbers to adjust difficulty, texture, and layout using moveable holds and surface panels, allowing both indoor and outdoor rock conditions to improve training realism, track progress more accurately, and reduce frustration. Unlike (5) Walltopia, out solution offers (6) dynamic grading adjustment, realistic surface textures, built in hygiene and safety features, and inclusive design for climbers of all heights and abilities. |
| Generated PDF Link |