No settled buyer yet
Who the customer is still changes between conversations.
Who we helpPre-PMF
The repeatable motion may not exist yet, and that changes what a diagnostic can do.
The founder is still testing who the buyer is, what problem matters and what people will pay for. A diagnosis needs a repeated pattern to read. An experiment is not one yet.
Stage read
Too early to diagnose, and worth saying.
Pricing still moving
Packaging and price are experiments, not a pattern.
Founder is the function
There is no commercial system separate from one person.
The motion has not repeated yet
Each win is explained by circumstances rather than by a pattern.
Nothing has run long enough to leak
Recurring cost needs a recurring system to accumulate inside.
Before anything repeats
What looks like a system is still one person’s judgment.
The uncertainty here is the work, not a dysfunction. That changes what any diagnosis could honestly establish.
The symptom is reported at the surface. The cause sits underneath it.
Each conversation tests a new hypothesis
Who the customer is still changes between calls.
Surface · what gets reportedThe founder is the function
There is no commercial system separate from one person.
Structure · what produces itNo pattern has repeated yet
Pricing and packaging are experiments rather than a baseline.
System · where it breaksNothing stable enough to diagnose
A diagnosis needs a repeated pattern to read, and this is the honest answer before scope.
Consequence · what it costsCause and consequence rarely surface in the same place.
What it looks for here
Told plainly: the fit is often not there yet.
The diagnostic reads a commercial system against six dysfunction families and quantifies financial consequences the evidence reaches. At pre-product-market-fit there is rarely enough repetition to produce a baseline. Better to hear that before a diagnostic is scoped than after.
- The founder and anyone else who sells
- Closed and lost opportunities to date
- Early customers and the reason each one bought
- The pricing and packaging logic so far
- Whatever qualification rule is being applied
- The founder's account of what is becoming repeatable
A motion still being found changes what the evidence can support.
What the next stage demands
A pattern that repeats, before anything else.
The transition out of this stage is not about scale. It is about producing the first thing a system can be built on: a reason deals close that survives being written down.
A repeatable reason to win
Deals closing for similar reasons rather than each for its own. Until that exists there is no motion to design and nothing to diagnose.
The founder made transferable
What the founder knows has to become something a second person can run. That is a documentation problem before it is a hiring problem.
A first commercial decision written down
One deliberate choice about who the customer is, recorded, so the next experiment tests it rather than replacing it.
Patience with measurement
A system that has not repeated cannot be measured honestly. Building the model comes before pricing what it costs.
What happens next
Three ways in, depending on what the evidence already says.
Executive Workshop
Three hours with the people who can change the system. One condition named, in writing, before any evidence is gathered.
Explore the Workshop →Diagnosis
Interviews, the records you already produce and your own rates. What is breaking, what it costs, what to change first.
Explore the Diagnosis →Strain Check
Ten questions, two minutes. A first read on which part of your commercial system is carrying the most strain.
Take the Strain Check → FAQ
Before you assume you need this yet.
We have no revenue yet, is the diagnostic useful for us?
Usually not yet. The method reads an existing pattern. Pre-revenue companies rarely have the history to produce one.
How do we know when we have moved past pre-PMF?
A rough signal is deals starting to close for similar reasons rather than each one being a different story. Once that pattern shows up consistently, there is usually enough of a system for a diagnostic to read.
Is there anything you offer that does fit at this stage?
A short conversation is often more useful than a paid engagement at this point. If something specific is worth flagging early, that will be said plainly on the call rather than turned into a scoped project.
Why publish a page telling us not to buy yet?
Because a diagnostic sold before there is a system to read produces a number that cannot be defended, and that is the opposite of what this practice is built on. Saying so plainly here costs less than saying it after the invoice.
Get started
There may be nothing to measure yet. A short call is the honest way to find out.
Use 30 minutes to define the operating question, test what evidence exists and decide whether Kihon has a role at all. No scope is proposed before that is clear.
Discuss the operating problem