(2026-02-14) Maurya Most Founders Guess The Best Ones Stresstest

Ash Maurya: Most founders guess. The best ones stress-test.

Most founders guess. The best ones stress-test.

1 Universal Principle
“You can’t validate a vague idea.”

The founders who succeed treat validation as a system. They stress-test their assumptions before running experiments. They track what they learn across sprints. And they make evidence-based decisions at defined checkpoints

I’ve spent the last 3 months proving this with 300+ founders through LEANSpark early access.

I. Stress-Test Before You Experiment

Before running a single experiment, score your business model across 7 dimensions: Clarity, Desirability, Viability, Feasibility, Defensibility, Timing, and Mission. Each dimension reveals a category of blind spots.

2 Underlying Strategies

Most founders skip straight to customer interviews with an untested model. That’s like running a clinical trial without knowing what you’re testing.

II. Validate in Sprints, Not in One Shot

Validation isn’t a weekend project. It’s a 90-day cycle broken into 2-week sprints. Each sprint has a clear goal, a set of experiments, and a review checkpoint.

At the end of 90 days, you make a 3P decision: Persevere, Pivot, or Pause

3 Actionable Tactics

I. Score Your Business Model This Week

II. Design Your First 90-Day Cycle

Map out 6 sprints. The first sprint should tackle your riskiest assumption — usually desirability or viability. Define what “good enough” evidence looks like

III. Get a Co-Pilot That Remembers

The reason generic AI tools fall short in validation is that they reset at the start of each session.

LEANSpark is Now Open

Plans start at $25/month.