Zeratsky: Design Sprints fail pre-seed startups that lack foundational positioning
John Zeratsky · Rapidly test and validate any startup idea with the 2-day Foundation Sprint · Jul 13, 2025 · at 10:15
John Zeratsky, co-creator of the Design Sprint and partner at Character Capital, explains why inception-stage startups require a Foundation Sprint before testing product prototypes.
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“When we started investing in, you know, truly precede, sometimes inception stage, you know, pre-product, pre-revenue, pre-everything companies, there was this piece missing at the beginning of that process. So we'd, we'd run design sprints and they would be helpful, but oftentimes it felt like there was a foundational element of that project that we didn't quite have our hands around. And it was things like, you know, what is the problem you're solving and who's the ideal customer? How are you different than what's in the market today? Who are your actual competitors?”
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