Your customers answer honestly. They just don’t know the reason themselves. So the sprint reconstructs the decision – with those who bought and with those who didn’t.

Three questions the sprint answers

1. Which needs does your product really meet – from the buyer’s point of view?
2. Which messages meet real demand, and which fall flat?
3. What is stopping people from buying today?

‘I have a product, I think it’s good, and still it isn’t selling as expected.’ (translated from German) That’s how this question reaches us. And whoever asks it has usually asked around already: the customers, the sales team, sometimes the ones who walked away. There were answers, too – the price, a feature, a colleague’s recommendation. But that is rarely why someone actually bought.

Your customers want to help you, and they answer honestly. They just don’t know the reason themselves, because nobody has a useful answer to ‘Why did you buy that?’ In other words, the reason lies in the decision, not in the answer. And the reason someone doesn’t buy is almost never the one the company assumes.

And if you keep analysing things yourself, reading reviews, asking your sales team – by all means. Alongside that, the sprint delivers the conversations nobody has internally – because ‘Why did you buy?’ is the wrong question, and a badly run interview costs you a good contact.

And you know in advance what will happen if you change message X – because you know the reason the non-buyers are stuck on. That’s no longer gut feeling. It’s a prediction you can test: on your next landing page, in your next sales conversation. And what to change first in your positioning and messaging is spelled out too.

If there’s a date in the diary

If the next campaign, budget round or trade fair is already in the diary, the sprint belongs before it. Otherwise, you’re betting budget on an assumption again – and only find out afterwards whether it was right.

From our work

Take Mantrafant. The founder knew his mats were good – but not why target customers threw a mat out. Four in-depth interviews, then a switch to the real reason people bought. Afterwards, the founder said on our podcast, advertising costs fell to roughly a third for the same number of sales.

Right now, the loudest ideas in the room win. The sprint prioritises by what actually moved buyers in their decision.

The e-bike case: manufacturers optimise for battery, range and motor. What people bought was commitment, identity, relationship. Case study (in German)

Three questions the sprint answers

1. Which improvements do you make – because they’re tied to a real reason to buy?
2. Which hypotheses do you test first, and with which experiment?
3. Which features probably won’t meet any real demand and can come off the list with a clear conscience?

‘We want to improve our product. We have maybe 80 ideas for the next generation. But we don’t know which two of them will really create demand.’ (translated from German) And you know what happens next: the loudest ideas in the room win. As one product manager put it in our interviews: ‘We never got to the real pain point.’ (translated from German)

So the sprint doesn’t prioritise by volume, but by what actually moved buyers in their decision. Because building 80 features isn’t product management. It’s a very expensive wish list.

And if your team keeps prioritising the list itself, with scoring and feedback from sales – by all means. The sprint puts what actually tipped the buying decision alongside it.

By the end, you know which two of the 80 to build – and why exactly those will meet real demand: because they’re tied to what tipped the buying decision. That’s a prediction you can test before a year of development capacity is committed to it. Which to test first and which to cut is spelled out too – each with evidence, so the discussion in-house starts with the finding, not with the loudest opinion.

If there’s a date in the diary

If the roadmap freeze or capacity planning has a date, the sprint belongs before it. Because after that, whatever was decided once gets built for a whole year. As one manager put it in our interviews: ‘It sends a chill down my spine when I hear that in November we decide our development capacity for the year.’ (translated from German)

From our work

Take our e-bike case. Manufacturers optimise for battery, range and motor. But what people bought was commitment, identity, relationship – the strongest triggers to buy weren’t features, but situational tipping points.

Plausibility feels like evidence, and it isn’t. So the sprint goes to the people who have the problem today and reconstructs how they solve it and where they get stuck.

Three questions the sprint answers

1. Does the problem really exist, and who does it matter to?
2. How do people solve it today, and where do existing solutions fall short?
3. Does your idea meet real demand – or just internal enthusiasm?

‘I have an idea. I think there’s a big problem in the market that nobody solves well enough yet.’ (translated from German) And before any money flows, you want to know whether the solution in your head meets real demand. Internally, the idea has long seemed plausible – otherwise you wouldn’t be here.

And if you keep working with market figures, competitor analysis and conversations in your network – by all means. The sprint adds what the figures don’t show: how people actually decided when they had the problem.

And if it’s a go: which segment first, with which promise – and what is likely to happen when you put it to that segment that way. That is the first prediction you test before you build.

Who the sprint talks to

All your competitors are fighting over the customers who already buy. The bigger market often lies with those who don’t buy anything like this yet and make do some other way.

That’s why the sprint talks to those who already buy, those who make do another way, and those who have switched – in either direction.

And if you already have a product on the market: when someone brings you their money because, at that moment, your product is worth more to them than their money, it is incredibly valuable to find out why. All the more so if you never expected that buyer.

Suppose you knew why the very people you didn’t expect are buying: who would you approach next?

If there’s a date in the diary

If the investment decision, the board meeting or the shareholder round is in the diary, the finding is on the table before it. Because a documented no-go before the money is spent is the cheapest decision you’ll make all year.

From our work

Take the Bitcoin Adoption Study DACH 2026 – a market with no solid in-depth research. 35 adoption stories, more than 1,200 pieces of evidence. Who buys, why, how people solve the problem today, where existing solutions fail. The same method as in the sprint, open for anyone to read (in German).