History
A signed contract, not a myth, financed Fairchild's founders
Museum archives date the 1957 resignation and financing, but not a founder equity split.
3 min · 2 source records
Is the problem worth a company?
Trade a large promise for a small, testable question. Learn what an interview, a pilot and a market model can actually establish.
THE WORKING OUTPUT
An experiment brief with a named uncertainty, a test and a decision rule.
Interest, usability, purchase and repeat use are different observations. None is a universal certificate of product–market fit.
Open the decision tools ↗A useful reading order
Write the evidence test before the feature list
Turn a product assumption into a bounded experiment with a real failure condition
3 min readInterview the last real purchase, not the imagined next one
Run customer interviews that reveal actual buying behavior instead of polite product feedback
3 min readBuild market size from a buying unit
Construct a bottom-up market model with explicit assumptions and sensitivity ranges
3 min readRun a concierge test without hiding the labor
Learn through manual delivery while preserving customer trust and exposing true service economics
4 min readDesign a paid pilot that can end cleanly
Structure a paid B2B pilot that tests value without drifting into indefinite custom work
3 min read
Go back to the research
Read a primary-source record alongside it.
History
HP wrote its culture down before it became legend
HP's own archives date a 1957 objectives statement; a proven template for other cultures it is not.
2 min · 2 source records
History
Adobe's founders left PARC over speed, not stolen ideas
Museum records tie Adobe's 1982 founding to one slow project inside Xerox, not a full account of missed PARC bets.
2 min · 2 source records