Calendar: 'Maya Chen'\nWeek: May 18 — May 24, 2026\n\nMonday: Teaching tutoring session 9-11am (old job, 2x/week still), free afternoon\nTuesday: Coffee with former colleague 10am, free rest of day\nWednesday: Tutoring 9-11am, dentist 2pm\nThursday: Free all day — marked as "deep work day"\nFriday: Tutoring 9-11am, friend's dinner 7pm\nSaturday: Free until 4pm (family visit)\nSunday: Free\n\nWeek: May 25 — May 31, 2026\nMonday: Tutoring 9-11am\nTuesday: Free\nWednesday: Tutoring 9-11am, call with potential co-founder 3pm\nThursday: Free all day\nFriday: Tutoring 9-11am\nWeekend: Free

Draft created in user's email client.\n\nTo: marcus@provisionscafe.com\nSubject: Re: Bakewise — ready to move forward?\n\nHi Marcus,\n\nReally appreciated our conversation last week. You mentioned you'd be willing to send a deposit when we're ready — I want to make that concrete.\n\nHere's what I'm offering: $150 for 3 months of early access when we launch in Q3, plus a direct line to me during that period to shape what gets built. You'd be one of five founding customers.\n\nIf you're in, I can send a simple one-page agreement today. No obligation to continue past the first three months.\n\nMaya\nmaya@bakewise.io\n\n---\n\nFacebook Group comment draft:\n\nHey everyone — I've been talking to bakery owners about custom order management and I keep hearing the same thing: the big tools are built for restaurants, not for a 4-person bakery doing 30 custom cakes a week. I'm trying to understand this better before building anything. Would anyone be open to a 20-minute conversation about how you currently track custom orders and ingredients? Not selling anything — genuinely in research mode. DM me or comment below.

Page: 'Maya — Validation Tracker (Organized)'\n\nName + Business | Problem Signal | Workaround | Commitment Level | Next Action\nSarah, Sugar Bloom Bakery (6 employees) | "I've had to call customers at 7am to tell them their wedding cake tier is smaller than planned." | Google Sheets + WhatsApp + paper slips | 3 — asked "when can I sign up?" | Send follow-up, ask her to commit to a pilot\nDavid, Morning Light Café (3 employees) | Standard café, not custom orders. Low problem signal. | Homebase for scheduling | 2 | No follow-up needed — wrong segment\nPriya, Flour & Thread Bakery (4 employees) | "If I get sick, the whole operation is at risk — I'm the only one who understands the spreadsheet." | 47-column Google Sheet built over 3 years | 5 — offered to beta test, said she'd pay $80/mo | Confirm pilot commitment, send draft agreement\nJames, The Crumb Lab (8 employees) | "I'm paying $340/month across these tools and they don't talk to each other." | Toast + Homebase + Airtable + printed checklists | 4 — asked to be emailed when ready, mentioned $150/mo | Send update email, ask for pilot commitment\nLinda, Petite Patisserie (2 employees) | Solo operator, low urgency. | Manual, all in her head | 2 | Wrong segment for now\nMarcus, Provisions Café (5 employees) | "One mistake and I have a lawsuit." — allergen tracking. | Nothing — tracks by feel | 6 — said "I'll send you a deposit" | Follow up TODAY — make the deposit real\n\nPattern notes: Allergen tracking mentioned by Marcus and Sarah. Price signals: Priya $80, James $150, Marcus "whatever it costs." Top priority follows-ups: Marcus (rung 6), Priya (rung 5), James (rung 4), Sarah (rung 3).

Summary  
This chapter explains how to structure a two-week validation sprint by defining explicit follow-up actions, new outreach goals, and a clear decision gate before writing any code.  

General domain of usage  
Startup product validation

Maya now has everything she needs to stop researching and start deciding. She has a hypothesis, market data, early adopter profiles, outreach templates, competitor analysis, and a tracker with six interviews organized by signal strength.

The last step is turning all of that into a plan – a concrete, time-boxed sprint that tells her exactly what to do in the next two weeks to get from "promising signals" to "three people at rung 5 or 6 on the commitment ladder."

## What a Validation Sprint Is

A validation sprint is not a product roadmap. It has nothing to do with building. It's a two-week action plan focused entirely on one question: **can I get three people to commit to paying before I write a line of code?**

The sprint has three components:

| Component | What It Covers |
|---|---|
| **Follow-up actions** | Who to contact this week, with what message, toward what commitment |
| **New outreach** | How many new people to contact, from which communities, with which message variant |
| **Decision gate** | What evidence by the end of two weeks means "build it" vs. "pivot" |

The decision gate is the most important part. It forces Maya to define in advance what success looks like – so she can't rationalize weak signals into a green light.

## Why This Lab Uses Multiple Tools Together

This lab pulls from everything Maya has built across the course:
- Her Notion tracker (who she's talked to, where they are on the ladder);
- Her calendar (what time she actually has in the next two weeks);
- Her outreach drafts (what messages to send, to whom).

A good sprint plan is specific about time, people, and actions – not just intentions. "Do more outreach" is not a plan. "Send the direct email version to James and Marcus by Wednesday, reach out to three new people from the Facebook group by Friday, and have one new interview scheduled by next Monday" is a plan.

## Task

Bring everything to the assistant. Give it context about where you are, ask it to read your tracker and your calendar, and ask for a sprint plan – specific, time-boxed, with a clear decision gate at the end.

### Prompts to Try
><b>Read my validation interview notes and my calendar for the next two weeks. Based on where my top leads are on the commitment ladder, build me a validation sprint plan – who to follow up with, what to say, how many new people to reach out to, and what I should have by the end of two weeks to decide whether to build this.

><b>Using the same notes you just loaded, write the follow-up message I should send to Marcus today. He said he'd send a deposit – I want to make that real.

><b>Draft a short outreach message I can post as a comment in the Bakery Business Owners Facebook group this week to find two more interview candidates. Based on the interviews so far, what problem language should I lead with?

Master the skills needed to test a startup idea before building anything. You'll research markets, find early adopters, write cold outreach, analyze competitors, and run a two-week validation sprint — all with AI doing the heavy lifting on research and drafting.

Get hands-on experience turning a vague startup idea into a specific, testable hypothesis – backed by real market research and a clear picture of who your first customer actually is.

Discover how to find early adopters, write cold outreach that gets replies, and read competitor signals – all before writing a single line of code or spending a dollar on development.

Master the skills needed to move from promising conversations to real commitments – tracking your interviews, identifying your strongest leads, and building a sprint plan to close your first paying customer.