Solution Testing and
Product Market Fit Measurement
5-weeks cohort programme| From £3,500 +VAT
Summer 2026: Jun 9 - Jul 13 | Winter 2026: Nov 3 - Dec 7
You've validated the problem. Now prove your solution is the one customers buy for before you scale.
In five weeks, working with and experienced Entrepreneur and Leader, Dr Chloe Sharp, you’ll un experiments that show whether customers will pay, what they'll pay, and measure how strong your product-market fit actually is.
This course naturally follows on from our Customer Discovery Sprint course
What you’ll walk away with
After five weeks you'll leave with:
Experiment results from landing pages, ads, and conversion tests that show whether customers will actually pay, not just say they're interested
Evidence-based customer segments showing exactly who wants to buy, your product and their procurement processes
Validated willingness-to-pay data and pricing strategy grounded in what prospects actually committed to
PMF signal strength measured through frameworks, showing how disappointed customers would be if your product disappeared
Documentation ready for grants, pitch decks, and product roadmaps with the commercial evidence that grant assessors and investors want to see
Validation skills you will use repeatedly as your product evolves including experiment design, A/B testing, AI-powered analysis, and PMF measurement frameworks
You'll also get access to our Grant Funding Fundamentals online course and Chloe's book Make Products That Matter to support you.
Our track record:
Delivered or trained validation in 100+ start-ups and SMEs
£10M+ in grant funding secured for clients
Author of Make Products That Matter
Worked with Accelerators: Amazon Sustainability, Science Creates, Carbon13, Natwest
"She really challenged our guesses and gave us something concrete to work with. We felt reassured that the iterations of the product are in line with user needs and our future product roadmap is based on evidence."
— Founder, Moses
"Dr Chloe Sharp's work has been invaluable in helping us assess and understand our market opportunity better and provided a level of professional support that we could never have imagined."
— Founder, TOME
"The team managed to glean insights that have been instrumental in steering our direction on a path that is wholly differentiated and giving us the edge on our competition, hands down."
— Marketing Manager, Redstone Connect
Who’s it for?
Late-stage MVP or early working product founders
You have a product customers can use, you've done customer discovery and understand the problem.
Now you need to test if customers will actually pay for your solution before you commit to scaling.
Technical founders who need commercial evidence
You're brilliant at building, but you need proof of product-market fit to strengthen your grant applications (Innovate UK, Horizon Europe) or investor pitches.
Founders ready to test customer behaviour
You've heard customers say they love your product, but will they pay for it?
You need to test what customers do (click, sign up and purchase) versus what they say.
The 5-Week Product Market Fit Journey
Map your business model, value proposition, network, and assumptions before you start testing. You'll define what "product-market fit" looks like for your specific product.
This groundwork ensures you're testing meaningful hypotheses with the right people, not just gathering vanity metrics.
Week 0: Strategic Preparation
Format
Cohort-based, hands-on learning:
12 founders max per cohort
Weekly 1-hour group training via Zoom
Weekly 1-2-1 coaching sessions
5 shadowed interviews with live feedback
Self-directed fieldwork (you do the interviews)
Peer learning and support
Decide on your testing methodology through 1-2-1 workshop and group training. You'll create interview guides focused on key PMF signals and design experiments for online testing.
You'll learn why social capital beats cold outreach for PMF conversations and how to structure tests that generate commercial evidence and not just product feedback.
Weeks 2 - 4: Run Systematic Market Experiments
You’ll get into testing, learning, and iterating.
Week 2 teaches you to set up your experiments using approaches for learning and validating. You'll conduct interviews while your experiments run.
Weeks 3-4 focus on reading early PMF signals, launching new experiments based on what you've learned, and using the interviews to understand the why behind the numbers.
Throughout, you're held accountable through 1-2-1 coaching to ensure experiments are out there and interviews happen.
Time commitment:
1-2 days per week for 7 weeks
Weekly training 1-hour + coaching 30 mins
Self-directed interviews and analysis, most time-intensive in Weeks 2-5
Not got 1-2 days per week?
Explore our Consultancy services where we do the validation work for you.
Tools
Make sure you have a paid plan for your AI:
Miro for canvases and affinity mapping
AI for transcription and analysis using our prompts
Zoom for group sessions
Slack/WhatsApp for community
Week 1: Build Your PMF Framework
Final week: Consolidate and Plan GTM
Review your PMF findings, present key insights to the cohort (if not commercially sensitive), and receive written feedback on your PMF report. You'll understand your PMF signal strength, which market segments to prioritise, and what your GTM strategy should be.
You’ll then transition to the alumni community with a clear path from PMF validation to commercial execution.
Convert your experiment results and interview data into defendable PMF evidence using AI-assisted analysis and affinity mapping. You'll assess PMF signal strength, update your product roadmap with validated priorities, and generate the commercial evidence funders and investors actually need to see.
The output is a comprehensive validation report that feeds directly into your GTM strategy, grant applications, investor deck, and product development decisions.
Week 5: Turn Data into Commercial Evidence
Eligibility Criteria
Have a working MVP or early product
You’re past the idea stage and now have something customers can actually use or interact with that demonstrates your solution.
You can reach target customers for testing
Preferably, through existing networks, industry connections, LinkedIn, or, if necessary, via cold outreach. We'll teach recruitment and experiment techniques, but you need access to potential buyers.
You're open to feedback on your product
You'll test what customers actually do (pay, sign up, convert), not defend what you hope they'll do. If evidence says pivot, you'll consider it.
You’ve completed Customer Discovery already
You understand the problem you're solving through interviews (either our Customer Discovery Sprint or equivalent work). Now you need to test the solution.
You have the time
You need 1-2 days, per week for, 5 weeks. to set up experiments, run tests, conduct interviews, and analyse results.
If you can't commit, this isn't the right programme but check out our Consultancy services where we do the validation for you.
How to Apply
Three-Step Process:
Complete the application form
Takes about 10-15 minutes and tells us about you, your motivations, business and innovation.
Discovery Call
If shortlisted, we'll invite you to a 30-minute conversation to explore your goals and confirm programme fit.
Cohort Placement
Successful applicants receive an offer and are placed in the next available cohort.
2026 Cohort Dates:
Summer Cohort: June 9 - July 13, 2026 | Winter Cohort: November 3 - December 7, 2026
Cohorts run quarterly from 2027 onward.
Investment: From £3,500 +VAT
(includes tools, materials, and coaching. Additional costs for interview incentives if needed, typically £30 per interview, ad spend for experiments and subscription to tools e.g. AI/Zoom).
Meet Dr Chloe Sharp
Dr Chloe Sharp literally wrote the book on validation: Make Products That Matter, but that's not why founders trust her with validation for their business.
She's secured over £10M in grant funding across Innovate UK, Scottish Enterprise and other competitions. She knows what evidence investors and funders actually need to see because she's written the applications that won. She's coached founders who went on to raise from SFC Capital, Octopus Ventures, and others, not because she taught them how to pitch better, but because she helped them validate properly first.
Chloe combines the rigour of academic research (PhD methodology) with the reality of commercial execution. She's grown businesses from £0 to £100K+ in year one. She's worked with 100+ startups and SMEs across product development, from idea to launch. She's coached and trained up-and-coming companies through Amazon Sustainability Accelerator, Science Creates, Carbon13, and Natwest, plus government-backed programmes like Help to Grow, TechUp, and Women in Innovation. She's ILM7 qualified in coaching and mentoring at master's level, but qualifications aren't why this programme exists.
This programme exists because Chloe speaks with early-stage founders regularly, and validation is consistently their biggest problem. Not because they don't understand the theory, but because most founders have read the same books and frameworks like The Mom Test and Lean Startup. They struggle because they don't know how to execute systematic customer discovery. They can't get people to respond to their outreach on LinkedIn. They don't know when they've done enough. They don't know how to turn interview data into decisions.
Chloe knows that theory has its place, but this is about execution and results. That's why the programme focuses on actually doing the 20-25 interviews, not just learning how to do them. It's why there's weekly accountability and shadowed interviews. It's why you leave with validated evidence that you can defend and use to help reduce commercial risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
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That's a successful outcome. Better to discover this in 5 weeks under £4K than after 12 months and £150K in development. We'll help you identify pivot opportunities or pricing adjustments based on what you learned.
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No, but you need to have done equivalent customer discovery work. You should understand the problem you're solving and have talked to potential customers already. This programme focuses on testing the solution and willingness-to-pay, not discovering the problem.
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Perfect. We'll review what you've learned, identify gaps in your testing approach, and design experiments that give you stronger PMF signals. Most founders test informally. We'll help you measure PMF strength with validated frameworks.
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Plan for 1-2 days per week including weekly group training (1 hour), weekly coaching (30 mins), and self-directed work setting up experiments, running tests, and conducting willingness-to-pay interviews. Week 3 and 4 are most time-intensive when experiments are live.
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No. Early prototype, concept, or detailed product vision is sufficient. The programme helps you validate before committing to full development.
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Customer Discovery tests the problem (do customers have this pain? Is it severe enough to pay to solve?).
This programme tests the solution (will customers pay for your specific product? What will they pay? How strong is product-market fit?).
Ideally you do Customer Discovery first, then this.
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No. But if you're grant-eligible (Innovate UK, Horizon Europe), the commercial evidence you gather (willingness-to-pay, conversion rates, PMF signals) will strengthen your application. You'll understand buyer behaviour and market validation, which is what grant assessors want to see. You also get access to our Grant Funding Fundamentals course.
We can point you in the direction of grant writers and we can also help you with a grant review if you’re interested.
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If you complete Week 1 and feel the programme isn't the right fit, we'll refund 80% of your fee (minus Week 1 training and materials). After Week 2, the fee is non-refundable as we've committed resources to your cohort.
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You'll join Sharp Signal, our alumni community for ongoing peer support. You can also book follow-on services: grant funding coaching, Product Market Fit Sprint, or consultancy where we do the work for you.
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We run a number of Masterclasses, online courses and Chloe’s book “Make Products that Matter” are all available.