BytesAgain βΊ Skills βΊ Business Viability Stakeholder Testing
π¦ ClawHub
Business Viability Stakeholder Testing
by @quochungto
Test whether a product solution is viable for the business before building. Use when business viability risk is Medium or High, when multiple internal functi...
This skill produces a structured viability sign-off β confirmation that the solution works for the business across all relevant dimensions β before the team commits to building.
Do NOT use this skill for customer-facing validation (user testing, demand validation). Those address value and usability risk. This skill addresses the internal business dimension: will finance, legal, sales, marketing, and executive stakeholders support this solution?
π‘ Examples
Example: Freemium Tier for Enterprise Security Product
Scenario: A security product team wants to launch a freemium tier. Sales is worried about cannibalization of enterprise deals. Legal has compliance concerns for free-tier users. The CEO wants to see unit economics before committing.
Step 1 β Applicable domains:
Sales: Yes β freemium changes what the sales force sells and potentially undercuts their pipeline
Legal: Yes β free-tier users may be subject to different compliance obligations (data retention, audit logging)
Finance: Yes β CEO wants unit economics; provisioning costs for free-tier users must be modeled
Customer Success: Yes β free-tier users may generate high support volume at low revenue
Security: Monitor β freemium may change data isolation requirements
Business Development: Not applicable (no partner agreements affected)
Executive: Yes β CEO has explicitly flagged concern
Step 2 β Specific concerns mapped:
Sales: Can sales still close enterprise deals if prospects start on free tier? Does free-tier cap the deal size?
Legal: Do free-tier users get the same data processing agreements? Are audit logs required for free users in regulated industries?
Finance: What is the cost to provision each free-tier user? At what conversion rate is the tier profitable?
CEO: What is the strategic bet β growth via free acquisition or revenue protection?
Step 3 β Relationship preparation: PM has standing weekly check-ins with sales leadership and CFO. Legal is a new relationship β PM schedules introductory meeting before the preview session to understand their review process.
Step 4 β Sessions:
Sales leadership: walkthrough of free-tier feature set vs. enterprise feature set using high-fidelity prototype. Sales leader identifies that free tier must not include the SSO feature (enterprise differentiator).
Legal: walkthrough of free user sign-up flow and data handling screens. Legal identifies that audit log exemption for free users requires explicit terms of service language.
Finance: co-model unit economics using current infrastructure cost data. Finance clears at 5% conversion rate assumption.
CEO: walkthrough of full tier structure. CEO clears with constraint: free tier must have a hard cap of 5 users per account.
Step 5 β No opinion conflicts in this case β all concerns resolved with data and concrete design decisions.
Step 6 β Sign-off document:
Sales: Cleared β constraint: SSO excluded from free tier
Legal: Cleared β constraint: audit log exemption requires specific ToS language
Finance: Cleared β at 5% conversion rate assumption; monitor if below 3%
Marketing: Cleared β positioning as "try before you buy" consistent with enterprise brand
Customer Success: Conditional β support volume model must be revisited if free-tier adoption exceeds 10,000 users/month
Security: Monitor β no new concerns surfaced
CEO: Cleared β constraint: 5-user hard cap per free account
Decision: Conditional clearance β proceed with constraints listed above.
