• Sprint plan. Each week your team has 3 slots: interviews, build, do it by hand, growth tests, fix tech debt or investor coffees. Interviews rule out a bad option in that week’s call. Building raises product level (better products keep users) but adds tech debt. Doing it by hand wins committed users; growth tests bring casual sign-ups who mostly leave.
• Cash. You start with $500k. Every week burns $18k plus your startup’s extra costs (hardware and robotics burn more). Some calls cost extra: deposits, fleets, contracts, rework.
• Evidence. Calls grounded in real customer behaviour and money add evidence. Opinions, vanity numbers and big commitments made too early add little or nothing.
• Milestones. Problem validated (week 2), solution validated (week 5), willingness to pay (week 6) and a retention signal (week 10). The right call only counts once the work behind it exists, such as interviews done, a working product, or committed users. Until then it waits.
• Curveballs. Three surprise events land in random weeks, so every run is different.
• Demo Day. A term sheet needs 3 of 4 milestones, 85+ evidence and cash left. Two milestones, or one milestone with 60+ evidence, earns a follow-up meeting. Run out of cash and Demo Day never comes.

Matt Ainsworth is the Lean CPTO. Proto tells the hardware case files and Beta tells the software ones. Your run isn't saved: refreshing restarts. Scores and feedback are only sent if you choose to post them.

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