Day 21 — Your Plan Is Taking Shape!
Srinivasan Ramanujam
Entrepreneur | Agentic AI & GenAI Specialist | MLOps Architect | AI/ML Trainer | MCP & Workflow Automation Expert
Entrepreneurship: Day 21 — “Your Plan Is Taking Shape!”
You’ve moved from fuzzy idea to something concrete. Today is about tightening the plan, proving the riskiest assumptions, and setting a lightweight execution cadence so momentum compounds.
1) The One-Page “Shape Snapshot”
Create a single page you can show to anyone. Keep it punchy but precise.
Problem: Who hurts? How often? What do they do today instead?
Audience: ICP (industry, role, company size, geography, budget).
Use Case: What the user achieves in 60 seconds, 10 minutes, 1 day.
Solution: 2–3 core capabilities only. What you’re not building (yet).
Differentiation: Why now? Why you? Alternatives customers compare you with.
Go-to-Market Path: Where you’ll reliably find your first 100 users.
Evidence so far: Customer quotes, preorders, pilots, letters of intent, usage.
Unit Economics (draft): Price, gross margin drivers, cost to serve.
Next 90 Days: 3 outcomes you’ll deliver and how you’ll measure them.
Top 3 Risks + Mitigations: Technical, market, regulatory, or operational.
Tip: If this page takes more than 30 minutes, you’re writing a report, not a plan. Trim.
2) The Evidence Checklist (What “Taking Shape” Really Means)
Your plan is maturing when you can point to these signals:
Problem evidence: At least 5 verbatim customer quotes showing urgency and budget.
Demand evidence: 25–100 waitlist signups from your exact ICP; 20%+ reply rate to outreach; at least 3 live discovery calls this week.
Willingness to pay: 2–3 prospects who agree to a paid pilot or a clear pre-purchase signal (e.g., PO process started, vendor onboarding).
Usability signal: A clickable demo or thin-slice prototype that a prospect can use without you explaining every step.
Distribution foothold: One repeatable channel with a clear “recipe” (e.g., a specific community + message + call-to-action that produced 10+ qualified conversations).
Economics draft: A first pass at pricing, cost to serve, and margin drivers (even if ranges).
3) The “Shape Score” (Self-Assessment Rubric)
Score each from 0–5. Anything ≤2 becomes an immediate focus area.
Clarity of problem & ICP
Real user evidence (quotes, calls, pilots)
Prototype that demonstrates value
Repeatable path to more users
Pricing & early unit economics
Team & operating cadence
Risk awareness & mitigation
Re-calculate weekly. Celebrate movement, not perfection.
4) 90-Day Outcome Plan (Not a Task List)
Choose three outcomes. Examples you can adapt:
O1: Prove demand. Result metric: 10 paid pilots or ₹X in preorders. Levers: 3 outreach lists, weekly demo day, referral loop, founder-led sales script.
O2: Ship value fast. Result metric: Prototype solves the core job in ≤3 minutes without hand-holding. Levers: Ruthless scope (2–3 core capabilities), weekly usability tests with target users.
O3: Validate economics. Result metric: Draft payback model showing a plausible path to profitability at small scale. Levers: Pricing tests, cost-to-serve audit, margin drivers, ops checklist.
Cadence:
Daily (15 min): What moved a metric yesterday? What will move it today? What’s blocked?
Weekly (60 min): Review Shape Score, metrics, and customer learnings; decide one focus shift.
Monthly (2 hrs): Reset the 90-day plan if assumptions changed.
5) Metrics That Matter (Working Definitions)
Keep these simple, visible, and tied to decisions.
Activation rate: Activated users ÷ signups (define “activated” clearly, e.g., completed first key action).
Retention checkpoint: % of activated users who repeat the key action after N days/weeks.
Conversion to paid: Paying customers ÷ qualified trials.
CAC (early): Sales + marketing spend ÷ new paying customers (track even if tiny).
LTV (first cut): (Average monthly revenue × gross margin) ÷ monthly churn rate.
Payback (months): CAC ÷ (Average monthly gross profit per customer).
Use metrics to choose actions. If activation is low, fix onboarding before buying traffic.
6) Risk Register (Top Patterns & Mitigations)
Market risk: The pain isn’t acute. → Narrow ICP, increase specificity, run 10 customer calls this week.
Distribution risk: You can’t reliably reach buyers. → Partner with communities or platforms already aggregating your ICP; test one channel at a time.
Technical risk: A core capability is uncertain. → Build a “bench test” prototype to validate feasibility before UX polish.
Execution risk: Too many priorities. → Freeze scope to a 2–3 capability “thin slice” until you see usage.
Regulatory/compliance risk: Unknown constraints. → Do a one-page compliance scan and book a 30-minute expert consult.
7) Your Narrative (7 Sentences)
Fill this in and keep it consistent across pitch, landing page, and emails.
The world changed because [shift].
[ICP] now struggle with [pain].
They currently [workaround], which is slow/expensive/risky.
We built [product] that [core job] in [time saving/result].
Unlike [alternatives], we [differentiator].
Early signs: [evidence].
Over the next 90 days, we’ll [outcomes].
8) The Thin-Slice Prototype (What to Ship Next)
Aim for something a user can complete in 2–3 minutes that proves the core value.
Scope: One primary job-to-be-done, one persona, one context.
Guardrails: No perfect dashboards, no edge cases, no broad feature sets.
Proof: A short usability session recording + a before/after statement from the user.
9) Go-to-Market “Recipe” (Repeatable, Not Random)
Document exactly what worked once and try to repeat it three times:
Where: Specific community, list, event, or partner.
Who: The role/title you message.
Hook: The problem statement in their words.
Offer: What they get (demo, pilot, ROI estimate).
CTA: The next action (book link, pilot sign-up, payment link).
Result: Replies, meetings booked, pilots started. Refine the recipe weekly; drop channels that don’t move numbers.
10) Early Economics (Draft, Not Doctrine)
Price testing: Offer 2–3 price anchors tied to value (per seat, per outcome, or tiered).
Cost to serve: Track human time per customer, infra costs, support load.
Gross margin: Revenue − direct costs. Focus on levers you can change this month.
Decision rule: If payback is unknowable, collect more data before scaling spend.
11) Operating Cadence & Tools (Lightweight)
Backlog: Organized by outcomes, not features.
Weekly review: Shape Score, top learnings, one decision.
Customer loop: 2–3 discovery or usability calls every week, logged as quotes and clips.
Decision log: One-page record of important choices and why you made them.
12) Fundraising/Stakeholder Readiness (Optional but Handy)
Mini data room: One-pager, traction snapshot, demo video, pilot summaries, basic financial model, top risks.
Update rhythm: Monthly email to advisors or early believers with metrics and asks.
Proof over polish: Short clips of users succeeding beat long decks.
13) Your Day-21 Action List (90 Minutes)
20 min: Fill the One-Page Shape Snapshot.
30 min: Book 3 customer calls; send 10 targeted messages using your current narrative.
20 min: Define the next thin-slice prototype and freeze scope.
20 min: Create the first Go-to-Market recipe and schedule a weekly review.
Copy-Paste Templates
A) One-Page Shape Snapshot (fill-in)
B) Weekly Review Doc (30 minutes)
C) Founder-Led Sales Email (first touch)
Closing Thought
“Taking shape” doesn’t mean “done.” It means the next decision is obvious because your plan is visible, your metrics are simple, and your calendar reflects what matters. Keep the loop tight: evidence → decision → action → evidence.