Asb Carol Observations

Observations: The Raw Facts About Who You Actually Are

Every ideal-customer definition is derived from an honest accounting of who the company actually is — but "write down our strengths and weaknesses" is an impossible instruction. Nobody knows where to start, everyone rationalizes, and whether something even IS a strength depends on who's asking. So this method starts a level lower: raw observations, gathered through twelve detailed question categories, recorded vividly and specifically, and deliberately NOT judged. Classification comes later; this step gets the truth on the record.

The mental model

Why observations before strengths

Whether a fact is a strength or a weakness is in the eye of the beholder: "inexpensive" is a strength to price-conscious buyers and a weakness signal to serious ones; "one hundred features" is completeness to some and bloat to others. Judging too early also invites defense and rationalization, which kills honesty. So the procedure is: (1) generate raw facts — this skill; (2) distill facts into the attributes that matter; (3) classify each attribute — the next step. Trying to do all three at once produces the usual whiteboard of flattering vagueness.

The outside-consultant posture

Generate facts as if you were an outside consultant hired to reverse-engineer the company: What decisions has it made, even unintentionally? What must its strategy be, even if nobody wrote it down? You may observe behaviors and outcomes; you may NOT interrogate anyone about why they acted — asking why makes people unwittingly rationalize or mount a defense. This is discovery, not judgment.

Public evidence is legitimate seed material

When the company already operates and strangers already talk about it online, the outside-consultant's first move is to go read what they say. Public reviews, social posts, forum threads, news articles, and the company's own marketing are real artifacts — checkable by channel and quote — so gathering them up front is not fabrication; it is exactly the reverse-engineering this posture calls for. But seed is not verdict: a scraped review is a candidate observation, recorded in its own External Research section and then pressed and confirmed by the user (who alone has seen the private behaviors behind it) before it becomes a numbered observation. The research widens the aperture and pre-loads the walk; it never replaces it. For a company with no product or no public presence yet, there is nothing to scan — skip it.

Don't evaluate, don't blame, don't act

The standing rule of the whole session. "Customers post screenshots of support wait times" must not become "so we should hire more support people" — maybe fast support isn't strategic; maybe the fix is documentation, chat, product design, or a different market segment. Now is not the time. Equally: no observation is anyone's fault. The moment the session turns evaluative, people stop telling the truth. Ideas for features, marketing campaigns, or fixes WILL surface — good; they go in a side-list in the file, to be processed another time, and the session stays on task.

Vivid and specific, or it isn't an observation

"Support could be better" is a mood. "Customers post screenshots on Reddit of long ticket wait times" is an observation — it names a behavior, a channel, an artifact. Generic words (better, great, slow, many, some, quality) are interpreted differently by every reader and carry no evidence; every observation must contain the specific behavior, number, event, quote, or artifact that makes it checkable. "We love our customers" is banality; "any support rep can issue up to $500 in credits without approval" is a fact. When the user offers the mood, press for the incident behind it. Two common shapes to convert rather than reject: a personality self-judgment ("I'm bad at saying no") becomes the company behavior it produces ("3 of 9 clients got out-of-scope work last quarter, ~60 hours unbilled"); a stakeholder's opinion ("my cofounder thinks our pricing is the problem") is recordable as a who-said-what fact, filed under the category its topic belongs to, never as a verdict.

The twelve categories

Each category comes with its scope deliberately widened — the parentheticals matter, because they pre-empt the excuses people use to withhold:

1. Undeniable comparative strength. What do customers praise when they choose you despite your foibles? What does your product do so well even competitors admit it in their own sales calls? What can your team do that most teams cannot? (Whether it's hard to copy or not, whether anyone seems to care or not.)
2. Consistent complaints. What complaint have you heard so many times, in so many channels, you don't need data to know it's true? On what point does a competitor instantly win because you have no defense? What do people leave you over even while apologizing as they cancel? (Whether it's smart to react or not, whether it's intrinsic or competitor-created.)
3. Proud of. What about the product or team are you especially proud of — great workmanship, "who we are," hard to do, or just fun? (Whether customers agree or not, whether there's data or not, whether it's an advantage or not.)
4. Head/tail differential. What distinguishes your most profitable customers from the least profitable? Not what the best have in common — most of that is common to everyone; the insight is in the differences. (Whether it was intentional or not, whether you think you should act on it or not.)
5. We wish / say we're great, but we're not. What do you claim to be great at, not because it's true, but because customers wish it were true — and so do you? (Whether or not it directly harms sales or retention.)
6. Customers advocate for. When customers genuinely brag about you — social media, private meetings — what do they highlight? What would even a disgruntled ex-employee begrudgingly admit? (Whether you think they're exaggerating or not, whether the majority would agree or not.)
7. Clear and present existential threats. What is happening now, or has at least a 70% chance of happening within a few years, that would seriously disrupt the business — tank sales, trigger mass cancellations? (Whether you can do anything about it or not, whether it's your fault or not. Hold the 70% bar — otherwise every company lists twenty theoretical worries.)
8. Organizational capabilities. What does your org structure make easy or hard? Which decisions are fast and intelligent versus slow and overwrought? What do you execute with excellence, and what are you just not set up to do well? (Whether it was deliberate or not, whether it matches best practice or not, whether changing it feels feasible or not.)
9. Technical architecture and capabilities. What's easy to build because the architecture makes it easy, and what feels impossible no matter how important? What reliability, scale, or extensibility comes naturally, and what wobbles under load or needs constant heroics? Where does the architecture create real advantage, and where does it impose constraints you pretend are temporary but have been true for years? (Whether the architecture is "good" or not, whether customers see it or not.)
10. Envy of / constantly losing sales to competitors. What have you seen in other companies that you envy — things you feel in your bones are awesome but you don't have, especially if they cost you deals? (Whether you should adopt it, or must face that it isn't who you are.)
11. Philosophy. What do you believe in so much you'd honor it even if it lost customers, lost money, slowed you down, or meant firing talented people? What do you believe in your gut about great work,