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Wanted?
A powerful validation suite that helps innovation teams unmask and confirm real market desire for their proposed solutions before investing further.
Use it now for free.
Your Strategic Partner in Idea Validation
Assess the true potential of your ideas
The Wanted? Next Tool is a comprehensive validation suite that enables innovation teams to conclusively confirm market demand for their proposed solutions before investing further resources. By systematically guiding teams through critical exercises, it helps uncover and pressure-test key assumptions, articulate resonant customer pain points, and ultimately ensure genuine desirability before proceeding with development.
Validate Desirability
Not Just Viability Zero in on whether your solution meets a real, acute market need - not just whether it's technically feasible. The Wanted? Next Tool keeps desirability validation the top priority.
Scrutinize Crucial Assumptions
Early Core assumptions can make or break an innovation's success. This suite surfaces and helps rapidly validate the high-impact, make-or-break assumptions before overinvesting.
Articulate Resonant Customer Pain Points
Understanding the true problems your customers face is crucial. Specific drills help clearly articulate and validate whether you're solving issues that genuinely resonate.
Harness AI for Authentic User Feedback
Leverage AI's power to generate virtual user personas and facilitate focus groups, providing authentic, diverse user feedback on your proposed solution's desirability.
Your Strategic Partner in Idea Validation
Assess the true potential of your ideas
- Start with the Pain Hypo drill:
- Identify the key constituent/customer
- Articulate their core problem/pain point
- Outline the consequences of that problem
- Move to the Is It Wanted PAK drill:
- Define the "Wanted Hypothesis" - why the solution is needed and by whom
- List out all Presumptions, Assumptions, and Knowledge about solution demand
- Prioritize and scrutinize the critical PAKs indicating true desirability
- Conduct the SVA (Super Vital Assumptions) drill:
- Gather all assumptions about the opportunity
- Map assumptions on a 2x2 matrix by Certainty and Impact
- Identify the "Tackle First" high-impact, low-certainty assumptions
- Prioritize validating these crucial make-or-break assumptions quickly
- Run the Ai Focus Group drill:
- Input the proposed Pain/Solution Hypothesis
- Generate diverse synthetic user personas
- Let AI facilitate a focus group discussion with the personas
- Capture SASU (like/wish/wonder) feedback and "wanted scores"
- Synthesize findings from all drills:
- Validate if a genuine consumer desire exists for the solution
- Pressure-test and evolve the solution concept based on insights
- Only proceed further if demand has been conclusively established
Drills included in this Next Tool
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Pain Hypo
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Description The Pain Hypo Drill is a strategic tool to articulate and validate pain hypotheses for various constituents. It assesses specific pains’ prevalence, severity, and consequences to guide decision-making on potential innovation opportunities. When to Use This Drill Utilize this drill when you need to explore which problems and pains might matter most to a given constituent—and why. It is particularly useful when pursuing a new opportunity or refining the focus of ongoing projects. Recommended For • Leaders and teams in strategic planning • Innovation managers evaluating new opportunities • Teams defining solution requirements Drill Objectives • To articulate pain points for target constituents • To validate the significance of these pain points through a structured evaluation process Useful Inputs • Constituent profiles and prior research • Existing feedback or data on constituent challenges • Insights from previous drills, such as the Strategic x Urgent Drill or Feel My Pain Drill
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Is It Wanted PAK
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Use when you want to validate if the solution you're developing is genuinely wanted or needed by the target audience or market.
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SVA
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In discovery-driven development, innovation is propelled by assumptions. The SVA Drill is a strategic tool tailored to prioritize these assumptions related to innovation opportunities. By employing a 2x2 sorter, this drill helps innovators evaluate assumptions based on certainty and impact, ensuring teams rapidly concentrate on the most consequential assumptions for testing, optimizing the chance of successful innovation. When to Use This Drill • During Assumption Generation. When a new assumption emerges in the discovery-driven development process, utilize the SVA Drill to evaluate its significance. This ensures that no assumption goes unexamined, and the most crucial ones are immediately identified. • Before Resource Allocation. Before dedicating significant resources or making critical decisions, ensure that all vital assumptions have been addressed and validated. • Strategy Calibration. In strategy sessions where the direction of the innovation is being outlined or revised, the SVA Drill helps identify potential roadblocks and opportunities. • Next Cycle Checkpoints. At different stages and steps of the Next Cycle, to reassess the validity and importance of existing assumptions and potentially introduce new ones. Drill Objectives • Strategically rank assumptions based on their perceived validity and their potential ramifications. • Highlight which assumptions warrant immediate validation. • Offer clear navigational guidance for the subsequent phases of the discovery-driven journey. Helpful Inputs • A comprehensive list of current assumptions associated with the project. • Insights and feedback from brainstorming sessions, stakeholder interactions, and SASU feedback. • Tools for visualizing and organizing information (e.g., whiteboards, markers, sticky notes).
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Pain Hypo (2nd iteration Wanted?)
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unrated (0)
Description The Pain Hypo Drill is a strategic tool to articulate and validate pain hypotheses for various constituents. It assesses specific pains’ prevalence, severity, and consequences to guide decision-making on potential innovation opportunities. When to Use This Drill Utilize this drill when you need to explore which problems and pains might matter most to a given constituent—and why. It is particularly useful when pursuing a new opportunity or refining the focus of ongoing projects. Recommended For • Leaders and teams in strategic planning • Innovation managers evaluating new opportunities • Teams defining solution requirements Drill Objectives • To articulate pain points for target constituents • To validate the significance of these pain points through a structured evaluation process Useful Inputs • Constituent profiles and prior research • Existing feedback or data on constituent challenges • Insights from previous drills, such as the Strategic x Urgent Drill or Feel My Pain Drill
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Ai Focus Group
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Give a Pain or Solution Hypothesis as input Then, create 5 personas inputting the occupation, location and age range to have AI assist you in creating a full description of a synthetic user. The we will generate a conversation between those personas where they will be led by a synthetic researcher. The output of this conversation is a SASU for each of the personas created, plus a wanted score between 1 and 5 of the proposed pain or solution hypothesis.
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Pain Hypo (3rd iteration - Wanted?)
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unrated (0)
Description The Pain Hypo Drill is a strategic tool to articulate and validate pain hypotheses for various constituents. It assesses specific pains’ prevalence, severity, and consequences to guide decision-making on potential innovation opportunities. When to Use This Drill Utilize this drill when you need to explore which problems and pains might matter most to a given constituent—and why. It is particularly useful when pursuing a new opportunity or refining the focus of ongoing projects. Recommended For • Leaders and teams in strategic planning • Innovation managers evaluating new opportunities • Teams defining solution requirements Drill Objectives • To articulate pain points for target constituents • To validate the significance of these pain points through a structured evaluation process Useful Inputs • Constituent profiles and prior research • Existing feedback or data on constituent challenges • Insights from previous drills, such as the Strategic x Urgent Drill or Feel My Pain Drill
Systematic De-Risking
Process
Following a structured, comprehensive approach to validation prevents skipping over crucial steps and optimally de-risks your innovation efforts from the start.
Use Wanted?Why use “Wanted?”
Prevent Costly Failures By Validating Demand Upfront. Most new product launches ultimately fail, often due to lack of proper demand validation. The Wanted? Next Tool ensures you confirm genuine market desire and uncover real customer pain points before overcommitting resources.
De-Risk Your Innovation Efforts From The Start. Its systematic approach guides scrutinizing core assumptions, articulating true "jobs to be done", and pressure-testing solutions with user feedback - powered by AI. This rigorous upfront validation maximizes your chances of success by vetting desirability before sinking valuable time and money into inadequate opportunities.
Easy to use: Follow simple steps to clear up uncertainties and plan the best actions for success.
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Pain Hypo
Practice
Move Fast
Allocated time
20 mins
Modality
Team
Rating
unrated (0)
When to use
- Leaders and teams in strategic planning
- Innovation managers evaluating new opportunities
- Teams defining solution requirements
Drill Objectives
- To articulate pain points for target constituents
- To validate the significance of these pain points through a structured evaluation process
- Constituent profiles and prior research
- Existing feedback or data on constituent challenges
- Insights from previous drills, such as the Strategic x Urgent Drill or Feel My Pain Drill
Outcomes
- A list of constituent pain points for validation
- Prioritized pain hypotheses based on their strategic impact and urgency
- Clear guidance on which opportunities are worth pursuing
Explain its purpose and importance in the innovation process.
Step 2. Complete Pain Hypo Worksheets or Posters
For each constituent:
- We believe that: [Identify constituent]
- Has a: [Describe their pain or problem]
- Which leads to: [Describe consequences]
Step 3. Score each Pain Hypothesis
Use the following scoring rubric:
Prevalence of Pain
- Large (3) >75% affected
- Medium (2) ~50% affected
- Small (1) <25% affected
- Large (3) = Extremely painful and debilitating
- Medium (2) = Very painful, cannot be ignored, but can be managed
- Small (1) = Annoying but can be ignored
- Large (3) = Extremely costly, presents an existential risk
- Medium (2) = Very costly, not sustainable long-term
- Small (1) = Annoying but can be borne
Step 4. Sum the points across the three categories.
Share with the group to gather insights and refine understanding.
Step 7. Prioritize or Deprioritize Hypotheses
Apply Color-Coded Thresholds:
- Red (1.0-2.0): Do not pursue the opportunity
- Yellow (2.1-3.5): Explore pain and problem further
- Green (3.6-5.0): Strongly consider pursuing
- Encourage diverse and inclusive participation to capture a broad spectrum of insights.
- Ensure clarity in the articulation of pain points to accurately assess their impact.
- Use insights from this drill to feed into subsequent strategic discussions or innovation planning sessions.
Helpful AI Prompts
- “Based on the scores, which pain points should be prioritized and why?”
- “Can AI suggest additional data or research that might influence our understanding of these pain points?”
- “How do these pain points align with our strategic goals and the needs of our constituents?”
When to use the Drill
How to introduce the Drill
Tips for facilitating the Drill
Is It Wanted PAK
Practice
Move Fast
Allocated time
30 mins
Modality
Team
Rating
unrated (0)
When to use
Outcomes
- Identification of the target audience's desire or need for the solution.
- Clarification of presumptions, assumptions, and knowledge about the solution's demand.
- Prioritized focus on the most critical aspects that indicate the solution's desirability.
Introduce the Is It Wanted PAK Drill, explaining the purpose of validating whether the solution is needed.
Have participants define the Wanted Hypothesis: why they believe the solution is needed, and by whom.
Ask participants to identify what they presume, assume, and know about the need or desire for their solution.
- Wanted Presumptions (e.g., "10 years from now very few people will use Instagram.")
- Wanted Assumptions (e.g., "The Instagram user population is shrinking.")
- Wanted Knowledge (e.g., "Instagram users increased 12.2% from April 2022–2023.")
- How they know (e.g., DataReportal.com article, Essential Instagram Statistics and Trends for 2023, etc.)
Encourage participants to critically evaluate the validity of their presumptions, assumptions, and knowledge, prioritizing and organizing them.
For our purposes, a presumption is an untestable assumption.
An assumption is something that we believe to be true and can test to become more certain about our belief.
Knowledge is a validated or proven assumption. We encourage innovators to gather their own data rather than to rely upon anecdotes, alternative data, or untested assumptions.
- Get Specific: Push participants to provide concrete evidence for their presumptions, assumptions, and knowledge. For example, if the assumption is that a particular feature will be popular, encourage them to identify specific user feedback or data supporting this.
- Challenge Assumptions: Encourage participants to challenge their own assumptions by asking questions like, ”How can we test this assumption?“ or “What evidence contradicts this?”
- Explore Beyond the Obvious: Ask participants to go beyond surface-level understanding. For example, instead of a broad presumption like “People want healthy food,” encourage more specific framing of assumptions, for example: “Busy professionals want convenient, healthy meal options.”
- Use Real-world Scenarios: Encourage participants to apply the drill to actual use cases for the solution. For example, if developing a new educational platform, consider real teachers, students, and administrators' wants and needs at specific moments in time, not just hypothetical ones.
SVA
Practice
Move Fast
Allocated time
30 mins
Modality
Team
Rating
unrated (0)
When to use
- During Assumption Generation. When a new assumption emerges in the discovery-driven development process, utilize the SVA Drill to evaluate its significance. This ensures that no assumption goes unexamined, and the most crucial ones are immediately identified.
- Before Resource Allocation. Before dedicating significant resources or making critical decisions, ensure that all vital assumptions have been addressed and validated.
- Strategy Calibration. In strategy sessions where the direction of the innovation is being outlined or revised, the SVA Drill helps identify potential roadblocks and opportunities.
- Next Cycle Checkpoints. At different stages and steps of the Next Cycle, to reassess the validity and importance of existing assumptions and potentially introduce new ones.
- Strategically rank assumptions based on their perceived validity and their potential ramifications.
- Highlight which assumptions warrant immediate validation.
- Offer clear navigational guidance for the subsequent phases of the discovery-driven journey.
Helpful Inputs
- A comprehensive list of current assumptions associated with the project.
- Insights and feedback from brainstorming sessions, stakeholder interactions, and SASU feedback.
- Tools for visualizing and organizing information (e.g., whiteboards, markers, sticky notes).
Outcomes
- A categorized list of assumptions with the highest priority ones earmarked for swift exploration.
- Amplified clarity and direction for teams navigating the uncharted territories of innovation.
- Risk mitigation as crucial assumptions are brought to light and tested early.
Collect all the assumptions related to the innovation opportunity. Regular brainstorming and SASU feedback sessions can aid in this.
Make the team familiar with:
- Certainty—how certain are we about this assumption?
- Impact—what’s its potential influence on the opportunity’s outcome?
Position each assumption considering your certainty about it (x-axis = Certainty) and its importance to the opportunity’s outcome (y-axis = Impact).
- Trust But Verify (High Certainty/High Impact) Assumptions you have strong faith in and which carry significant weight for the project. Monitor and validate.
- Tackle First (Low Certainty/High Impact) Assumptions that can make or break the project, but there’s uncertainty about their validity. Immediately validate.
- Monitor Periodically (High Certainty/Low Impact) Well-trusted assumptions that don’t shift the project’s trajectory. Monitor.
- Low Certainty, Low Impact: Assumptions with questionable certainty and lesser consequence. Address later or if dynamics shift.
Step 4. Prioritize & Strategize
Prioritize small bets to test Low Certainty/High Impact assumptions.
Certainty is ever-evolving in discovery-driven development. Use the SVADrill to stay focused on the assumptions that matter most to the success of the innovation opportunity.
- Encourage open dialogue and diverse perspectives to understand each assumption comprehensively.
- Use visual tools effectively to enhance understanding and participation.
- Be prepared to adapt the approach based on the dynamic nature of assumptions and project needs.
Helpful AI Prompts
- “List potential assumptions in [specific area/opportunity] that must be addressed.”
- “Generate criteria for evaluating the impact of assumptions on our opportunity’s outcome.”
- “Suggest strategies for validating ‘Tackle First’ assumptions effectively and efficiently.”
Pain Hypo (2nd iteration Wanted?)
Practice
Move Fast
Allocated time
30 mins
Modality
Team
Rating
unrated (0)
When to use
- Leaders and teams in strategic planning
- Innovation managers evaluating new opportunities
- Teams defining solution requirements
Drill Objectives
- To articulate pain points for target constituents
- To validate the significance of these pain points through a structured evaluation process
- Constituent profiles and prior research
- Existing feedback or data on constituent challenges
- Insights from previous drills, such as the Strategic x Urgent Drill or Feel My Pain Drill
Outcomes
- A list of constituent pain points for validation
- Prioritized pain hypotheses based on their strategic impact and urgency
- Clear guidance on which opportunities are worth pursuing
Explain its purpose and importance in the innovation process.
Step 2. Complete Pain Hypo Worksheets or Posters
For each constituent:
- We believe that: [Identify constituent]
- Has a: [Describe their pain or problem]
- Which leads to: [Describe consequences]
Step 3. Score each Pain Hypothesis
Use the following scoring rubric:
Prevalence of Pain
- Large (3) >75% affected
- Medium (2) ~50% affected
- Small (1) <25% affected
- Large (3) = Extremely painful and debilitating
- Medium (2) = Very painful, cannot be ignored, but can be managed
- Small (1) = Annoying but can be ignored
- Large (3) = Extremely costly, presents an existential risk
- Medium (2) = Very costly, not sustainable long-term
- Small (1) = Annoying but can be borne
Step 4. Sum the points across the three categories.
Share with the group to gather insights and refine understanding.
Step 7. Prioritize or Deprioritize Hypotheses
Apply Color-Coded Thresholds:
- Red (1.0-2.0): Do not pursue the opportunity
- Yellow (2.1-3.5): Explore pain and problem further
- Green (3.6-5.0): Strongly consider pursuing
- Encourage diverse and inclusive participation to capture a broad spectrum of insights.
- Ensure clarity in the articulation of pain points to accurately assess their impact.
- Use insights from this drill to feed into subsequent strategic discussions or innovation planning sessions.
Helpful AI Prompts
- “Based on the scores, which pain points should be prioritized and why?”
- “Can AI suggest additional data or research that might influence our understanding of these pain points?”
- “How do these pain points align with our strategic goals and the needs of our constituents?”
Ai Focus Group
Practice
Move Fast
Allocated time
20 mins
Modality
Team
Rating
unrated (0)
When to use
Then, create 5 personas inputting the occupation, location and age range to have AI assist you in creating a full description of a synthetic user.
The we will generate a conversation between those personas where they will be led by a synthetic researcher.
The output of this conversation is a SASU for each of the personas created, plus a wanted score between 1 and 5 of the proposed pain or solution hypothesis.
Outcomes
You will receive a sASU per each persona, and a conversation summary of 5 bullet points of the most important touched subjects.
If you want you can see the full transcript of the conversation.
Pain Hypo (3rd iteration - Wanted?)
Practice
Move Fast
Allocated time
30 mins
Modality
Team
Rating
unrated (0)
When to use
- Leaders and teams in strategic planning
- Innovation managers evaluating new opportunities
- Teams defining solution requirements
Drill Objectives
- To articulate pain points for target constituents
- To validate the significance of these pain points through a structured evaluation process
- Constituent profiles and prior research
- Existing feedback or data on constituent challenges
- Insights from previous drills, such as the Strategic x Urgent Drill or Feel My Pain Drill
Outcomes
- A list of constituent pain points for validation
- Prioritized pain hypotheses based on their strategic impact and urgency
- Clear guidance on which opportunities are worth pursuing
Explain its purpose and importance in the innovation process.
Step 2. Complete Pain Hypo Worksheets or Posters
For each constituent:
- We believe that: [Identify constituent]
- Has a: [Describe their pain or problem]
- Which leads to: [Describe consequences]
Step 3. Score each Pain Hypothesis
Use the following scoring rubric:
Prevalence of Pain
- Large (3) >75% affected
- Medium (2) ~50% affected
- Small (1) <25% affected
- Large (3) = Extremely painful and debilitating
- Medium (2) = Very painful, cannot be ignored, but can be managed
- Small (1) = Annoying but can be ignored
- Large (3) = Extremely costly, presents an existential risk
- Medium (2) = Very costly, not sustainable long-term
- Small (1) = Annoying but can be borne
Step 4. Sum the points across the three categories.
Share with the group to gather insights and refine understanding.
Step 7. Prioritize or Deprioritize Hypotheses
Apply Color-Coded Thresholds:
- Red (1.0-2.0): Do not pursue the opportunity
- Yellow (2.1-3.5): Explore pain and problem further
- Green (3.6-5.0): Strongly consider pursuing
- Encourage diverse and inclusive participation to capture a broad spectrum of insights.
- Ensure clarity in the articulation of pain points to accurately assess their impact.
- Use insights from this drill to feed into subsequent strategic discussions or innovation planning sessions.
Helpful AI Prompts
- “Based on the scores, which pain points should be prioritized and why?”
- “Can AI suggest additional data or research that might influence our understanding of these pain points?”
- “How do these pain points align with our strategic goals and the needs of our constituents?”