Desirability — a switch, not a compliment
Desirability isn't 'did someone say they'd buy it.' It's whether one specific customer would fire what they use today and hire yours instead.
Your job: replace "everyone kind of wants it" with one segment that would actually fire its current alternative.
Test desirability Read `business_model://current` and `competitive://current`. For each segment, name the true existing alternative (what they use today, not other startups), the known problem, and whether the UVP is 10× better. Flag any segment whose desire is broad but shallow. claude mcp add --transport http leanspark https://leanspark.ai/mcp Connect first →
What you get back
Chains Customer Segments → Problem → Existing Alternatives → the UVP that has to beat them, then pressure-tests whether the pain is acute enough for a real switch — flagging the broad, shallow appeal that signals a false positive.
Per segment: the true existing alternative, whether your UVP is 10× better, and which single segment has switch-grade pain.
The second core test is Desirability, and it’s where the false positive from Chapter 1 comes due. Desirability is not “did someone say they’d buy it.” Remember CloudFire — people said yes, people paid, and it still didn’t matter. Done right, desirability is about switching: is the pain acute enough that a specific customer would actually fire what they use today and hire your thing instead?
The key is what I call the Innovator’s Gift: new problems come from old solutions. You never invent a problem in white space — you find it by looking at what people use today and asking what’s broken with it. That chains four boxes on the canvas:
- Customer Segments — who.
- Problem — what’s broken for them.
- Existing Alternatives — how they solve it today (not other startups — the real incumbent, even if it’s a spreadsheet or a habit).
- Unique Value Proposition — what your solution must beat, by 10×, to be worth the switch.
Better is relative. The trap is pitching your solution in a vacuum — “we’re great!” The gift is that the existing alternative hands you the comparison for free. Don’t ask “is the CD good,” ask “is the CD better than the cassette — and at what?” Tangled tapes, no rewinding at a party. Those are known problems, and a UVP built on them is one people will actually switch for.
Now look at a canvas like Steve’s through that lens. Four segments all “want” no-code AR/VR. That broad, easy appeal is exactly the smell of a false positive — when everyone kind of wants it, usually no one wants it badly enough to switch. Desirability forces the real question: which one segment feels this pain badly enough to switch now? Not four maybes. One yes.