Opportunity set

Worksheet 1 — Market Opportunity Set

Help the team build a broad, varied set of market opportunities, then screen it down. A market opportunity = one application × one customer group, tied together by a need. The goal is cognitive flexibility — many viewpoints, not one early bet. The classic trap here is falling in love with the first idea, so coach the team to "look before you leap" — focusing from day one is a myth, and you never know what's out there unless you look.

Work with the team. Propose, prompt, and organise — but the team decides what enters and stays in their set.

The mechanic: de-link, then re-link

• De-linking (upper part): describe the venture's core abilities generically, separated from the current product — know-how, processes, rare resources, special capabilities. Ask "what can we do", not "what do we sell".
• Re-linking (lower part): for each ability (or combination), ask who has a need it could serve and what application would serve it. Deliberately reach for distant markets.

Procedure

1. De-link the abilities. Elicit the key elements: technological functions, unique know-how, processes, rare resources, existing strengths (customer base, channels, R&D). Describe each in the most generic terms and note its functions / properties / limitations. Allow hypothetical or planned abilities ("what if we also had X?"). Write these into the upper part of where-to-play/01_opportunity-set.md.

2. Re-link into opportunities. For each ability or recombination, brainstorm application × customer pairs using the discovery prompts S&M lean on — "What can we do with this? Who may need this?" — and the Innovator's-DNA probes ("why, why not, what if"; "become an anthropologist"). Push for breadth and distance ("out of the box"). Use zoom-in / zoom-out to multiply segments. Separate buyer vs. user when they differ. Aim for a deliberately large brainstorm here (20–50 raw ideas is normal). To widen the search, optionally invoke the opportunity-discovery agent for a breadth-first fan-out — it proposes candidates from distant domains; the team curates.

3. Pick the right abstraction level ("continents vs. countries"). Keep all opportunities at a comparable granularity — specific enough to research and reach, not so narrow they fragment. Compare continents to continents, countries to countries.

4. Screen down (Initial Screening). Reduce the raw list to a handful using the four screening questions — apply them with the team, recording reasoning. Reassure them that dropping an option here is a win, not a loss: a "no-go" is a sign you searched broadly and creatively, and it is far cheaper to learn it now than after sweat, tears and money. Prefer a heterogeneous surviving set to maximise learning:

   1. Is there truly a customer need there?
   2. Can we satisfy this need with our unique abilities — and better than existing solutions? (treat as two checks)
   3. Are there severe restrictions that would hinder us from executing on this opportunity?
   4. Is this opportunity in line with our core values / moral compass?

5. Name and record the set. Give each surviving opportunity a clear, specific name. Target ≈3–5 ("a handful"). Write them into where-to-play/01_opportunity-set.md. This set is a living document: opportunities can be added, refined, dismissed, or brought back — but a new one only enters after passing the screening above.

Optional: stage a quick debate

Worksheet 1 lives or dies on breadth, so a short two-sided debate helps. When the set feels thin or the team is anchored on one industry, offer to spawn the persona-explorer agent (push for bolder, more distant re-linking) and the persona-skeptic agent (stress-test the screening — is the need really a must-have, can you truly serve it better?). For a method-grounded nudge toward breadth, the advisor-tal-gruber agent in its "diverge" mode champions the opportunity landscape. These voices propose and provoke — the team still curates and screens.

Boundaries

• Generate candidates with the team and the discovery agent, but never lock the set yourself — the team curates and screens.
• A well-defined ability avoids vague labels like "algorithm" and never reveals how it works, only what it can do. A well-defined segment is specific enough that one could explain how to reach it.
• There is "no right or wrong" in the de-linking part — encourage divergence before screening.

Hand-off

When the set is named and screened, route to the attractiveness-map skill (Worksheet 2) to evaluate each opportunity.

Additional resources

• references/worksheet-1-spec.md — full normative spec: de-/re-linking, abstraction level, the four screening questions, pitfalls, Innovator's-DNA discovery skills, open [[ZU PRÜFEN]] flags.
• references/examples/ceal-ws1.md — a real, filled Worksheet 1 (abilities + application×customer opportunities) as a few-shot reference.