MOMENT 01 · BEFORE THE COMMITMENT

You are about to commit capital to an industrial technology bet. Test the buyer first.

Before the capital request goes in, the budget cycle closes or a team is hired, find out whether the bet holds: who will buy, at what price, from which budget, and what would make you stop. You get graded evidence and a recommended verdict while changing course is still cheap.

Request a Sprint Assessment

Try the free five buyer questions check

Five assumptions a business case usually carries untested

  • Whether the buyer you designed for holds the budget.
  • Whether the urgency is real enough to beat doing nothing, or was reported by a seller.
  • What the buyer pays, at a named price, in your segment, and from which budget: a capital purchase, a subscription, or both.
  • Which function signs: operations, maintenance, quality, engineering, IT or finance.
  • How long the real buying cycle runs, which route carries it, and what stalls it.

Each hire, contract and roadmap decision after this point makes the bet more expensive to reverse.

What the business case assumes, untested Five assumptions a business case usually carries untested, shown as unchecked boxes: the buyer holds the budget, the urgency is real, the buyer pays your price, you know who signs, and the buying cycle is as planned; a Sprint tests each one before the capital commits. BEFORE THE COMMITMENT What the business case assumes The buyer holds the budget The urgency is real The buyer pays your price You know who signs The buying cycle is as planned A Sprint tests each one before the capital commits

What a Sprint delivers

Before the commitment, one of two things.

  • For a product or service offer

    A validated ideal customer profile (ICP)

    With the disqualifiers named, willingness-to-pay evidence at your target price, and the route the evidence supports.

  • For an internal program

    The sites and plant managers ready to adopt it

    And the cost per site they would approve.

How the evidence is graded

Either way, a verdict of Proceed, Pivot, Reset or Stop, with the reasoning attached.

Questions before you commit

What does it mean to validate an industrial technology bet before committing capital?

It means testing, with the people who would sign, whether an industrial buyer will adopt and pay for the technology, at what price and from which budget, before the capital is committed. Every claim is graded Verified, Benchmarked or Assumption, and the work ends in a recommended verdict: Proceed, Pivot, Reset or Stop.

What can a Sprint tell me before I commit?

Whether the buyer you designed for holds the budget, whether the urgency beats doing nothing, what the buyer pays at a named price and from which budget, which function signs, and how long the real buying cycle runs. For a product or service offer you also get a validated ideal customer profile with the disqualifiers named. For an internal program you get the sites and plant managers ready to adopt it and the cost per site they would approve.

Is a successful pilot enough evidence to commit capital?

A working pilot shows the technology runs at one site. It does not show that the buyer who has to sign has the problem at the urgency and the price the business case assumed. The paper on pilot purgatory sets out why pilots succeed and still do not convert.

What if the verdict is Stop?

Three of the four verdicts keep the initiative going, and a verdict is a recommendation: the people who own the decision make it. A Stop before the commitment comes with documented stop criteria and releases the capital while changing course is still cheap.

Do I need a list of buyers to start?

Named contacts make a Sprint faster. Without them, Thing Company builds the target list and runs the outreach.

How much does it cost?

Every engagement is scoped per engagement. The fee is fixed once the scope is set and does not change with the verdict. The Sprint Assessment tells you what scope fits your decision.

Test the hypothesis before you fund it.

One hypothesis and a fixed fee, with the scope set by the decision you have to make. The Sprint Assessment tells you whether a Sprint fits.

Request a Sprint Assessment

Or reach us directly at hello@thing.company