What’s the one critical assumption you can’t afford to get wrong?

The longer it goes unverified, the longer you are exposed.

Aug 29, 2023

Welcome to Dog Whistle Branding, the official newsletter of IRONBOUND Media, brought to you by me, "IRON" Mike Steadman, Founder of IRONBOUND and The Godfather of Dog Whistle Branding.

Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Aspiring Dog Whistle Brand Owner,

If you’re not having success in your venture, chances are you’ve based your go-to market strategy on a key critical assumption, that you’ve yet to validate or overestimated its significance.

This will tank your business model if you don’t correct it soon. Don’t believe me, look up Quibi, the short-lived American short-form streaming platform. Quibi raised 1.75 billion dollars from investors on the assumption that customers were willing to pay a monthly subscription fee, in order to watch exclusive Quibi content on their mobile devices. Three years after launching, the app was sold for 100 million dollars, and became another example of venture investing gone wild.

Don’t be like Quibi. Before you invest any more money in your business, make sure you’re doing everything in your power to verify your critical assumptions.

Operation Mobile Bazaar

During my 2012 deployment to Afghanistan, I served as a Mobile Assault Platoon (MAP) Commander, with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines; leading convoys of upwards of 10-15 vehicles and 80+ Marines, hunting for the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan.

My mission was to interdict the Taliban’s smuggling operations at mobile bazaars, pop-up market places that took place in remote locations, allowing the Taliban to trade narcotics, weapons, and money.

Intelligence suggested the bazaars would take place at a certain date and time, but there was no guarantee. All we had to go off was their best critical assumption.

My first operation took more than 72 hours to complete, including the time it took to prep the vehicles, marines, and intelligence. The tentative location of the bazaar was nearly eight hours away and at the time, Southern Afghanistan was a literal minefield. From the time we departed base until arriving on scene, I had no guarantee the bazaar or the enemy would be there. It’s a hell of a thing to mount up 80+ Marines, putting their lives at stake, on unverified assumptions.

As you can imagine, words can’t express the sigh of relief I felt once air assets confirmed the bazaars formation as my assault platoon was enroute. (Critical Assumption #1 Verified)

Without the bazaar, the operation would've been deemed a “dry hole”, risking our lives for nothing, and severely limiting the chances for follow-on missions, . Over the course of 2 months, I conducted 5-6 mobile bazaar ops, and each time the enemy was where intel assumed they would be. During this period, although we hit multiple IEDs and lost a few vehicles, thankfully we didn’t lose any Marines.

How This Applies To You:

Although you’re not a platoon commander in combat, you have a moral obligation to validate your assumptions as soon as possible, especially if you have team members and stakeholders, whose livelihood is relying on you.

Instead of just winging it with bullet points on a pitch deck or in Google Docs, I challenge you to articulate your thoughts in a one to two page write-up. This will force you to think critically about your assumptions, going beyond the surface level and digging two to three layers deeper.

In the Marines, we had to write a full five-paragraph operation order, to include a full analysis of the enemy situation, and follow-on briefings.

The least you can do is write out your thoughts.

***P.S. I’m a Marine Grunt, so I apologize for any grammar errors in advance, but know I’m working on improving my writing. Also, please note that Chat GPT was not used nor harmed in the publication of this newsletter.

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