Startup Foundations — Reference at the Point of Need

Concepts when you need them

WWMCAD is Chris Myers’s customer-centered approach. Start with the problem space, customer communities, current behavior and a day in the life. Build an evidence-grounded archetype before treating the customer-facing canvas as settled. Operations, costs/revenue and iteration come later. The user, buyer and payer can be different people. A hypothesis is a claim to investigate; an archetype summarizes supported patterns and remaining differences.

A worked distinction

Example: two people describe the same delay, but one solves it with a colleague and the other buys outside help. Preserve both behaviors. Ask about their most recent event and its consequences; do not replace those observations with “Would you buy our app?”

Return to the work

Use the concept to make a concrete check or decision in your current artifact. If it does not help, return to the task rather than collecting terminology. Ask your assistant to explain an unfamiliar term using your example, then check the explanation against the source or observed behavior.

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