Experimentation
How a Startup learns from every run without fooling itself.
Experimentation is the resting state of a Startup, not a program someone starts. Every run carries a Hypothesis in and ends in Evidence and a Decision.
Every run is a loop
Every Play declares a loop, and so does every Process whose output reaches a buyer. The loop names the Hypothesis, the Metric that settles it, a window and a minimum sample.
loop: {
hypothesis: 'Refundable deposits opened for 72 hours after one creator post cross the Building entry check.',
measure: { metric: 'committed-icp-members', window: '3d', minN: 100 },
}The learn step closes every loop, and no definition removes it. A Process with nothing to learn, such as a tax filing, declares no loop and cites the floor row or Control it serves.
Every loop ends in a Decision
The learn step reads the Readout, records Evidence, and writes one Decision: ship, kill or iterate. At the scope of the whole Startup, the Decision is persevere or pivot.
On iterate, the learn step drafts the next Variant from the last one. Most Decisions are recorded and never reach a person. A missed target, a guardrail breach, a one-way ship and a pivot reach the Founder.
Every agent choice is logged
When an Agent chooses among options, such as a send hour or a headline, the choice is randomized. Its Exposure records every option and the probability each one had.
That log is what later estimates read. Offline replay scores a new Variant against past choices before anyone sees it.
Small traffic, read honestly
A Startup with 40 Visitors a week cannot settle a split test in any useful time. It reaches a verdict three ways:
- Ask the Portfolio first. A Prior lookup reads what sibling Startups with the same Product Template, Motion and state already learned.
- Pool across siblings. Siblings testing the same value read as strata of one Experiment.
- Climb the ladder. The test ladder settles in two weeks what a split test settles in a quarter.
Every number prints how far it can be read:
Visitor to deposit · 37 of 200 exposures · readable in 9 days
Visitor to deposit · pooled with 14 siblings · verdict in 6 daysA Startup never ships a high-stakes winner on a number that cannot be read.
Never randomized
Some paths hold for every unit, and no Experiment varies them. The agent never varies its own yardstick, and a guardrail stops an Experiment without waiting for its window.
Next
From Live, the experimentation engine keeps a challenger on every path and runs the same loop across the Portfolio.