See how a Failure Forecast exposes the risks hiding inside an idea
Explore a complete example to see how weak assumptions, failure risks, warning signs and kill criteria are turned into a practical decision report.
The full sample report
Click to readAI-powered habit-breaking app
A worked example: an AI habit-breaking app for knowledge workers, stress-tested for demand, differentiation, monetisation and the risks most likely to kill it first.
Read the full reportWhat a sample forecast contains
A full report names the assumptions the idea depends on, the failure risks attached to each one, the early warning signs that a risk is becoming real, and the kill criteria that tell you when to stop rather than keep spending.
Use it as a worked example rather than an answer key. Read how each assumption is isolated, then do the same with your own idea: write the assumption down, decide what evidence would disprove it, and pick the cheapest test that produces that evidence.
This is a pre-mortem, not a prediction. Nothing here forecasts whether a business will succeed. The method assumes the idea has already failed and works backwards through the most believable reasons why, so the weakest parts surface while they are still cheap to change.
Every idea carries a different set of assumptions and risks. A hardware product, a local service and a B2B tool fail for entirely different reasons, so treat the structure of the example as transferable and the specifics as not.
Condensed illustrations
Short illustrations, not published reportsShort, illustrative extracts showing the shape of the output for different kinds of idea. They are not full reports and do not have their own pages.
AI dating app for introverts
- 01Cold-start liquidity, too few introverts in any single city to spark matches in week one.
- 02Brand positioning collapses into 'just another dating app' the moment growth requires paid ads.
- 03Retention cliff after first awkward match, introverts churn silently rather than complain.
Launch in one city, one demographic (e.g. London tech 25-34). Sell a guided 4-week 'first conversation' programme, not a swipe app. Charge from day one to filter for intent.
Hangover prevention gummy
- 01Health claims you cannot legally make are the only claims that actually sell the product.
- 02Repeat purchase only happens after a heavy night, demand is spiky, irregular, hard to forecast.
- 03Amazon and TikTok are flooded with near-identical liver-support supplements with $4 COGS.
Drop 'hangover' from the front of the brand. Reframe as a pre-night-out ritual sold in 4-packs at festivals, stag/hen events and corporate party suppliers. Win the moment, not the morning after.
Queue Jump restaurant app
- 01Restaurants have zero incentive to sell line-skips that anger their loyal walk-in regulars.
- 02Chicken-and-egg: diners won't open the app without restaurants; restaurants won't sign without diners.
- 03Unit economics break, a $3 skip fee can't fund both sales reps and paid user acquisition.
Stop pitching restaurants. Pitch event venues, theme parks and food halls where queues are the product owner's problem. Sell a B2B SaaS dashboard, not a consumer marketplace.
Pub profit leak SaaS
- 01Independent landlords are notoriously slow to adopt software and allergic to monthly fees.
- 02Pulling data from EPOS, stock and rota systems requires brittle integrations you don't control.
- 03Pub closures across the UK shrink the addressable market every quarter you delay.
Sell the first 20 customers a done-for-you profit audit at £499, not a SaaS subscription. Use the audits to prove ROI in pounds, then upsell the dashboard to keep the leak closed.
$1 winner-takes-prize mobile game
- 01Real-money prize mechanics trigger gambling regulation in most of the US, UK and EU, licensing eats the margin.
- 02Apple and Google reject paid-entry prize apps under their gambling and sweepstakes policies.
- 03Without a huge prize pool you cannot acquire users; without users you cannot fund a huge prize pool.
Kill the cash prize. Rebuild as a free-to-enter skill tournament with branded sponsor prizes and pay-to-customise cosmetics. Sponsors fund the prize pool; players fund the brand.
Your idea deserves the same brutal look.
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