Printable plan · Growth fundamentals · Lesson 7

Your first 100 users: a 60-day experiment plan

Two months. Four fortnights. Five experiments per fortnight. One weekly review. Designed for a solo founder with ten paying customers and a real product. Print it, mark it up, tape it to the wall.

Read the full guide

// HOW TO USE THIS PAGE

One side per fortnight, one ritual per Friday

Each card below is one of the four fortnights. Fill in the experiment slots in pen on Sunday night. Read the leading metrics every Friday for an hour. At the end of week 4, decide which one experiment to double down on. At the end of week 8, write down what is now true that was not true on day one.

// THE 60-DAY GRID

Four fortnights, five experiments each

Weeks 1–2 · Narrow

One ICP, one channel, one hypothesis

No experiments yet. Write a single page that names the customer paragraph, the channel you can actually run, and the hypothesis you believe enough to be uncomfortable about.

  • ICP paragraph (3 real names)
  • Channel chosen by access
  • Hypothesis: If X in Y, then Z at rate A
  • Friday 1 review
  • Friday 2 review

Weeks 3–4 · Run five

One obvious, three sensible, one weird

Five small bets in parallel, all inside your narrow. Every experiment uses the same template. Two-week minimum window before reading any signal. Spreadsheet row per experiment.

  • Experiment 1 (obvious)
  • Experiment 2 (variation)
  • Experiment 3 (variation)
  • Experiment 4 (variation)
  • Experiment 5 (weird)

Weeks 5–6 · Double down or kill

Concentration, not coverage

One will be working, one clearly not, two ambiguous, one surprising. Pour everything into the winner. Kill the loser the day after the review. Investigate the surprise.

  • Winner: double-down plan
  • Loser: shutdown date
  • Surprise: 1-week investigation
  • Ambiguous A: keep on autopilot
  • Ambiguous B: keep on autopilot

Weeks 7–8 · Turn into a loop

From event to system

Describe the winning motion as a sequence whose output becomes its own input. Find what you can take yourself out of. Decide the order of magnitude for inputs and outputs. Put the rhythm on the calendar.

  • Loop written as steps
  • What can be templated
  • Inputs per cycle (order of magnitude)
  • Outputs per cycle
  • Weekly rhythm scheduled

// FOR EVERY EXPERIMENT

The five-line experiment template

Hypothesis
If I do in channel , then users will respond at rate within .
Leading metric
The thing you watch in days, not months.
Success threshold
The number that, if hit, makes you say this worked.
Kill criteria
The number or behavior that, if seen, makes you stop.
Time-box
Two weeks from to . Non-negotiable read date.

// EVERY FRIDAY · 60 MINUTES

The weekly review prompts

  • Numbers, in plain text, for each live experiment
  • One sentence on what surprised you this week
  • One sentence on what disappointed you
  • Anything that should change next week, decided now
  • Time spent on the plan vs. everything else
  • One small thing you can take yourself out of

// DEFER UNTIL AFTER USER 100

What to ignore

  • Paid acquisition at micro budgets
  • Channel hopping
  • Dashboards before week 8
  • Hiring
  • Rebrand or site redesign
  • New features for a single prospect