The confidence worksheet
capability: Method · last revised August 2026
Ask me how confident I was and you'd have gotten adjectives. This worksheet forces numbers. For each dimension below, write your confidence as one of: 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, or 100 percent — where 0 is 'guessing' and 100 is 'validated with evidence I could show a stranger'. The number is not the point; the honesty cascade is. Once one dimension is marked 'guessing', the conviction propping up the others starts to look like what it is.
Ecosystem
Who are the players, how does value flow between them, and where do you fit — at what confidence?
0 · 20 · 40 · 60 · 80 · 100
Target customer
Who, precisely, is this for — and how many of them have you spoken to?
0 · 20 · 40 · 60 · 80 · 100
Customer problem
What negative experience are they in — and have you watched it happen?
0 · 20 · 40 · 60 · 80 · 100
Customer job
What are they trying to get done, functionally and emotionally — in their words or yours?
0 · 20 · 40 · 60 · 80 · 100
Value exchange
What do they give, what do they get — and has anyone actually paid?
0 · 20 · 40 · 60 · 80 · 100
For each number below 80, write one sentence: what evidence would move it one step? That sentence is your next experiment.
This worksheet is an open implementation of the validation method; a full open standard is in build.