Discover, grounded.
In context: Stage 02 · Discover
Discover is where you research the world a product will live in, before you commit a single line to a direction.
Discover replaces hunches with evidence. Name the outcomes that matter, map the industry and its standards, pin a real buyer, size the market, check the IP picture, talk to stakeholders, then shape the findings into directions worth taking forward.
What the Discover stage is
Discover is the research stage. Before you decide what the product should be, you study the world it has to survive in: who buys, what they already use, what the field expects, what the rules are, and where the gaps sit. The aim is to swap assumptions for evidence while changing direction is still cheap, so that every later decision rests on something you actually checked rather than something you hoped was true.
For the £149 sourdough proofing box, this is where Dan and Anna Hartley’s idea met reality in Stockport. We pinned the cold-kitchen baker who follows the Sourdough School method, looked hard at the market and what people pay, and read the IP and standards picture (UKCA, the relevant BS EN) before any shape was drawn. I asked the awkward questions early so the later stages were not built on guesswork.
What’s in this stage
Seven activities take Discover from a raw idea to a researched, defensible picture. Work them roughly in order.
How it fits the bigger picture
Discover is Stage 02 of the 10-stage process. It builds on the raw concept set in Stage 01 Idea and feeds Stage 03 Innovate, where the researched directions get pushed and combined. Do the research properly here and Innovate has real ground to stand on; skip it and every later stage inherits the guesswork.
What it can do
It replaces opinion with evidence: a real buyer, a sized market, a clear read on standards and IP, and a set of directions grounded in what you found. Done well, it ends with a defensible picture of the opportunity and the constraints around it.
What it can’t do
It can’t pick the final design or prove the product works; that comes later. And it can’t research away a fundamentally weak idea. Discover sharpens your understanding, but it does not turn a poor opportunity into a good one.
See the full 10-stage process →
Try it yourself
Take your own idea and spend an hour on one buyer. Write down who they actually are, what they use today, and what they pay for it, using real evidence rather than a guess. Then start with the first activity below to research the rest properly.
Or run the guided version. The Free Sprint covers the early stages, including Discover. Start the Free Sprint →
— Start here → Identify your value goals