3. Who Took the PSP?

We collected responses from 100 startups over a number of weeks. Here is how they classify themselves:

• Validating: 62%
• Emerging: 28%
• Shaping: 10%

Insight: While most founders classified themselves as Validating, deeper analysis revealed gaps in clarity, urgency, and user traction. Confidence does not always mean readiness.

4. What Startups Get Right and Where They Struggle?

Problem Clarity

37% validated their problem with real users, 26% documented it with data, 60% articulated the problem clearly, but only 43% did when they had just a 'general sense' of the problem.

Insight: Validation strengthens clarity: "startups that validate with users are nearly twice as likely to articulate the problem effectively (70% vs. 43%)."

Action Plan:
Use the Emerging-stage action:
→ Run structured validation sessions with early adopters. Use their feedback to document the problem in their own words. This boosts clarity and moves you toward shaping-stage maturity.

Audience Understanding

Only 38% of founders built a well-defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with psychographics, pain points, and buying behavior. Most operate with vague or early ideas of their audience. However, those with clear ICPs were 1.5× more likely to have direct access to their users (55% vs. 38%).
This shows that clarity doesn’t just help messaging, it unlocks real reach.

Insight:
→ You can’t access who you can’t describe.
→ Deep ICP work creates visibility, relevance, and response, before you even run a campaign.

Action Plan:
Use Shaping-stage action:

→ Map your ICP using real interviews: 10 user calls focused on habits, goals, and frustrations. Then use this to identify 3 actual channels (Slack groups, subreddits, influencers) where they hang out.
→ Refine the ICP weekly and don’t run outreach until you can name where and why your ICP makes decisions.

Pain Severity

 While 32% of users were desperately seeking solutions (or already paying for alternatives), another 32% were just exploring options, and 36% showed passive interest. Still, 50% of founders observed that users were already hacking together workarounds, a strong proxy for urgency.
Startups who identified these behaviors were better positioned to frame compelling value propositions and drive faster adoption.

Insight:
→ Clear pain isn’t just what users say, it’s what they do to fix it.
→ Workarounds = urgency signals. If users are spending time, money, or effort to patch a problem, a better solution becomes instantly valuable.

Action Plan:
 Use Validating-stage action:

→Observe or shadow 5 users actively solving the problem. Note any time-costly, clunky, or expensive workarounds. Then reframe your offer to emphasize speed, savings, or simplicity.
→ Validate this urgency by A/B testing 2 versions of your pitch: one general, one pain-driven. Double down on what clicks.

Solution Maturity

While 49% of founders were still in the idea or prototype stage, only 26% had tested their solution thoroughly. Yet those who did test with target users and got strong, specific feedback saw a 62% commitment rate—nearly 9× higher than the 7% among those who hadn’t tested at all.
That makes one thing clear: testing isn’t optional, it’s a growth trigger.

Insight:
→ Thorough user testing converts feedback into traction.
→ It’s not about launching—it’s about listening, iterating, and validating before scaling.

Action Plan:
 Use Validating-stage action:

→Run a 3-week structured testing sprint. Each week, test with 3 target users. Collect specific, not general feedback: What confused them? What feature solved a real problem? What would they pay for?
→ Don’t move to scale until 5+ users say “I’d switch,” “I’d pay,” or “I’d recommend this.”

5. What the Stage Tells Us, A Progression in Practice

• Emerging:
  Founders here show low scores across the board: Problem (avg ≈ 1.54), Audience (1.64), Severity (1.77), Solution (1.44).
  Charts show most responses clustering at the lowest levels (1–2). This signals early exploration: problems are loosely defined, audiences are broad, and no user testing has occurred yet.

• Shaping:
  This is where momentum peaks: Problem (2.75), Audience (2.90), Severity (2.55), Solution (2.37).
  Bar charts confirm this: shaping-stage founders dominate the higher ranges (2.5–3) across dimensions. It’s a high-activity zone, often messy, but powerful. Clarity improves fast here.

• Validating:
  A surprising dip in some areas: Problem drops to 2.37, Solution to 1.90. But this isn’t regression, it’s refinement. Founders here are testing, adjusting, and facing real-world friction.
  As shown in the graphs, Validating dominates the mid-ranges (2–2.5), this is the “truth-testing” phase where confidence gets trimmed down to what’s provable.

6. What Founders Can Do at Each Stage

If You're in the Emerging Stage

Signs: Problem score ~1.5, audience and solution scores also low. Most founders here (10+) report just having a "general sense" of the problem.
Action: Run structured validation sessions. Among founders who did this (37%), 70% could clearly articulate the problem, compared to only 43% who hadn’t.

If You’re in the Shaping Stage

Signs: Problem (2.75), audience (2.90), and severity scores jump. Founders here report better definitions—but only 38% had a well-defined Ideal Customer Profile.
Action: Refine your ICP. Founders with a strong ICP were 1.5× more likely to access their audience (55% vs 38%).

If You’re in the Validating Stage

Signs: Scores dip slightly, especially on solution (1.90). This stage is about narrowing scope and testing what works.
Action: Embed user testing. Among founders who gathered strong, specific feedback, 62% saw user commitment. For those who didn’t test, only 7% reached that level.

7. Check Your Pulse

The Next Step for the Founder If you are a founder building something, the direction your startup takes should not be a matter of pure chance. Pulse is a free, 3-minute self-assessment that helps you find out whether what you are building is really solving the right problem for the right people. Why it matters: Incubated teams whose startups have succeeded say that knowing who to build for and what real problem to solve is critical. Yet, only 38% of the teams we surveyed said that they had a clear idea of their ICP, or ideal customer profile.

Don’t guess. Test.
  Take the Pulse now and get your custom action plan.