Design the product
Turn the validated problem into the flows and screens a customer needs to get one job done.
Blueprint altitude
Build: through the steepest year
Months 6 to 36, typically. About 1 in 5 new businesses close in their first year.
Build on the long horizon
Months 6 to 36, typically. About 1 in 5 new businesses close in their first year.
Build covers two phases. Build is the first release, the first customers and the first hires, run on the S.T.A.R.T.U.P. Initiative and A.N.D.R.O.I.D. Ops. Launch makes sales repeatable and finds product-market fit, run on the L.A.U.N.C.H. Sequence.
Build starts from a problem you have tested. From the blueprint altitude, the team draws what a first release must do, cuts the scope to that, and builds it in reviewed cycles. A dedicated team does the work, and WE steers it. The aim is a first product that a real customer can use, plus the paper trail that explains it: the scope, the decisions and the open items.
You keep a security baseline and a first release, a customer evidence index and a financial model. The first year is the steepest on the clock, so the year-one Orbit Review sits right where the data shows most companies close.
Where Build sits on the business clock
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Build
Months 6 to 18
A Star on its Track
The first release and the first customers, through the steepest year.
S.T.A.R.T.U.P. Initiative
- Structure
- Think Tank
- Analysis
- Relations
- UX/UI
- Publications
A.N.D.R.O.I.D. Ops
- Advance
- Network
- Design
- Research
- Optimize
- Implement
- Deliver
Checkpoint Year-one Orbit Review
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Launch
Months 18 to 36
Lift-off: the Star becomes a Super Star
Repeatable sales and product-market fit.
L.A.U.N.C.H. Sequence
- Logistics
- Application
- Users
- Navigation
- Channel
- Hive
Checkpoint Year-three Orbit Review
What the public data shows
77.9% 1
of new U.S. businesses were still operating after one year (opened in the year to March 2024)
These figures describe all new U.S. businesses, not WE's results.
What the company keeps
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Security baseline and first release
A first release real customers use, built on a written security baseline.
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Customer evidence index
Every customer conversation and result, indexed so anyone can check it.
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Financial model
The numbers the plan rests on, with their sources.
What you work on in Build
Cut the first release
Apply a cut line to the scope so the first release contains what the evidence supports and nothing more.
Defer architecture you do not need yet
Make the decisions the first release requires and write down the ones that can wait.
Build and ship in reviewed cycles
The dedicated team works in cycles. Each ends with something you can open, and a review with you.
Set the baseline
Fill in a security and accessibility checklist early, so gaps are known while they are cheap to close.
Where to start
Each of these is open to read today. They are the working tools of this stage.
- Playbook Design the product From a validated problem to a design the team can build.
- Playbook Build and ship v1 Cycles, reviews and release for the first version.
- Template MVP cut-line worksheet A worksheet for deciding what is in and out.
- Template Security baseline checklist A working checklist, not a certification.
- Insight Cutting an MVP: the cut-line test How to say no to features without losing the point.
Evidence that this stage is finished
WE judges a stage by what you can inspect, not by how much time has passed. Before moving on, check that these exist and that you have read them.
- A written first-release scope with an explicit cut line and the reason for each exclusion.
- A running first release that a real customer can open and use.
- A list of build-versus-buy decisions, with the reason for each.
- A register of the repositories, accounts and documents for the product, so you always know where everything lives.
- A security and accessibility baseline checklist, filled in honestly, with open items marked as open.
What this stage does not do
- Build does not include production operations or round-the-clock support.
- It does not promise a ship date. Dates depend on scope and on decisions only you can make.
- The baseline checklist is a working tool. It is not an audit or an attestation, and it does not show that the product meets any outside standard.
Service lines that carry this stage
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B. Product and IT DevelopmentDesign, build and release the product.
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D. Business Management and OperationsCadence, goals, metrics and the weekly rhythm.
The long game
Move fast every week. Build for the decade.
Build runs through the years when the odds are hardest. Ship every week, and keep the plan patient.
Every week
Fast, and written down.
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1 Plan The week’s cycle is set in writing. -
2 Build A dedicated team ships the work. - 3 Report A written status, every week.
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4 Decide You say yes or no to the next cycle.
Every year
Patient, because the odds turn slowly.
Most new businesses close in the first five years. After that, each year survived makes the next more likely. WE paces the work to that curve.
Public funding
Apply to SBIR and STTR.
The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs fund small businesses to do research and development. If your company is building something technical, apply, and keep applying.
WE helps founders prepare alongside. WE is not an agency and cannot promise an award.
- 1 Find The agency topics that match what you build.
- 2 Prepare The registrations, the plan and the proposal.
- 3 Apply Submit, learn from the review and go again.
Plan the steepest year with WE
Start a readiness review. WE arranges a conversation, then sends a one-page read of where the company sits on the business clock and what Build would need.