The Salt Test for Start-ups

From experience, I know that one of the greatest challenges for a start-up is limited access to resources, particularly when it comes to money and people. This challenge is magnified when you combine it with the inherent risk of building an innovative product.  

To overcome these challenges, entrepreneurs/start-up founders must use their resources as efficiently as possible, while still maximising the probability of success. This is a difficult line to tread.  

The Salt Test is designed to help with this. It provides a step-by-step guide, called the Product Phase Map, to take a start-up from an idea to a profitable, scalable business. The Product Phase Map is made up of four different phases, Problem, Solution, Build and Go to Market (GTM).  

The goal for each phase is to maximise the probability of success, with the minimum resources required. For example, understanding the problem you are trying to solve for your target market is the foundation upon which your product will be built. Proving this can be done cost-effectively. All it takes is one individual and a lot of market research. 

The next phase is finding a suitable solution to that problem. While this is more expensive than the previous phase, it can still be done cost-effectively. By working with a Product Designer, you can build inexpensive prototypes to test your solutions with real users. All of this can be done without building the actual product, which is the next phase, the Build phase.  

The Build phase can be expensive, as you will likely need a team of engineers. However, since you have already proven that the problem exists, and your solution is a suitable one, your risk is low and your investment is justified. 

As you can see, in each step we are trying to prove the riskiest assumptions with the least cost – maximising the probability of success, while spending as little as possible.

The Product Phase Map for start-ups and angel investors