What you'll take away
- 01 A repeatable Subtraction Audit you can run on your own backlog in under two weeks.
- 02 How to write a kill-script that holds up to a stakeholder defense.
- 03 Why the first prototype of the bestseller almost always had three times too many features in it — and how to spot that pattern in your own work.
Most companies do not have a building problem. They have a removing problem.
The pattern, repeated across twenty years of innovation work and forty-plus startups coached, is almost always the same: the team has built more than the market needed, more than the team can support, more than the launch can carry. Revenue does not keep pace because there is too much in the release. Not too little.
Validate, the first book of the four-volume Subtract to Ship method, is a working manual for finding the three to five things actually blocking your launch — and for removing them in a way that holds up to a stakeholder defense.
What this book covers
- The Subtraction Audit: a two-week process to inventory what you have built, what is shipping, and what is sitting between the two.
- The Kill List: a one-page artifact you can hand to a board, an investor, or a head of product to defend a removal.
- The 90-Day Receipt: how to report back, ninety days later, on what was on the Kill List, what was executed, and what shipped.
Who it is for
Founders with a product already built, where revenue has not kept pace with the last six months of work. Innovation leads in mid-to-large companies whose pilots have stalled between proof-of-concept and production. Anyone whose backlog is bigger than their team can ship.
Series context
Validate is the first of a four-volume set: Validate · Build · Grow · Scale. Each book stands alone; together they form a complete operator’s manual for shipping under constraint.
Tell me when it ships
Get a note when Subtract to Ship: Validate is available.
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