🎯 Students · First-time founders · Evidence over assumption
One afternoon of watching taught them more than a semester of discussion at a desk.
The Problem-Solution Fit Evidence Ladder
One of my favourite student stories started as a PowerPoint slide
A startup team came into our programme with an idea: gamify Hong Kong’s country park hiking trails so more people get outdoors.
We could have spent months debating the concept. Instead they built a rough working prototype and took it to the park. They stood there for hours watching real hikers interact with the trail checkpoints, writing down what people actually did.
What they found surprised them. The strongest motivation was discovery, not just competition. The scoreboard was interesting — finding something was what kept people walking. One afternoon of watching changed their whole design.
7 rungs of evidence
I keep seeing builders stop at the first rung and call it research. There is a tool in the book for this: the Evidence Ladder. Seven rungs, from least to most convincing:
- Desk research — reading what others have written.
- Expert interviews — talking to people who know the field.
- Customer interviews — talking to people who have the problem.
- Observation — watching what people do, rather than asking them to recall it.
- Demand signal — a waitlist, a pre-order, a prototype people ask to keep.
- Paid pilot — someone actually pays.
- Scaled launch.
Two rules govern the ladder. Never build on rung one alone. And climb at least two rungs before you commit serious money.
The rung that gets skipped
Rung four is the one most people skip, and it is often the most revealing. What people say they do and what they actually do are two different datasets. The country park team only found their real motivation — discovery over competition — by standing and watching.
Observation is also the cheapest rung. It costs an afternoon and a notebook.
Evidence beats assumption
I learned the value of evidence the expensive way. I have run projects where we trusted the market research and skipped the observation, and we paid for it. I have also watched founders with modest budgets overtake better-funded competitors simply because they climbed the ladder faster. Telling signal from noise is a capability, and it sharpens quickest when you are testing against real people, early.
userOS is our attempt to compress that. An AI Coach helps you design your research, prepare and debrief your interviews, and spot patterns you would have walked past — while the Strategist agent holds you to evidence rather than enthusiasm. You still do the talking and the watching. That part stays yours, and it is the part that builds the judgement. You simply will not be guessing alone.
Where to start
Take whatever you are building right now and place it on the ladder. Which rung are you standing on? Then plan one action this week that takes you up a rung.
The Evidence Ladder Tracker will be a free download from our new site in October. Join the list and we will tell you when it is ready — and the userOS pilot test waiting list is open now if you would like to practise the process with an AI Coach.
Place your project on the ladder — then climb one rung this week.
Related reading: interdisciplinary corporate innovation.
