Southern Adventist University · Ruth McKee School of Business
CLIMBCenter for Learning in Innovative Missional Business
FORGE

The Founder's Hub

MGNT 291/491 — Management Practicum
Build something that actually holds up.
01Discovery 02Design 03Test 04Evolve
Start here
Before you open a single tool

One distinction shapes everything

Forge is for founders who believe business is a force for good. You see an opportunity and you want to build something real — seriously, with tools and accountability, not just a good idea. Here is the one line that separates Forge from its sibling program, Impact.

Forge · MGNT 291/491

You own the venture

  • Student-owned venture
  • You define the mission, market, and model
  • Success = a venture that is real, tested, and moving
  • You carry the risk — and you keep the reward
Impact · MGNT 288/488

The community owns the project

  • Community-owned project
  • The community defines the need; the team serves it
  • Success = measurable impact for the people served
  • The community carries the long-term stake

The tools in this guide are built for founders — not community teams. They ask about customers, competition, and building something you intend to own and grow. If the need belongs to a community and you're serving it rather than owning it, Impact is your track.

How Forge works

Four phases. One forge.

The path moves from a hunch to a venture: from an idea you've only just spotted, to something real, tested, and moving. Each phase has its tools and ends at a gate you clear with evidence, not optimism.

1
Discovery Talk to customers · find the fit

Understand who you serve and what they actually need — before designing anything.

Tool 1 · Customer & Value Canvas GateA real customer described the need in their own words.
2
Design Prototype it · scan the market

Build rough prototypes, scan your competition, and sketch a business model worth testing.

Tool 2 · Prototypes & Choice Matrix GateAt least one concept scores Yes on Desirable, justified by the results.
3
Test Find your riskiest guess · test it cheaply

Pilot the strongest concept with real customers before you commit further.

Tool 3 · Test Board GateTested with real people. Evidence shown, not impressions.
4
Evolve Decide · keep watching

Make the pivot-or-preserve calls, build a monitoring plan, and present at Bring It Studio.

Tool 4 · Evolution & Monitoring GateMilestone review — on track, or flagged for a course correction.
The journey at a glance

Phases, tools, and gates on one map

The same arc as a single diagram — four phases, four tools spanning them, and the instructor gates with their pass / revise-and-return loops.

How FORGE Works DISCOVERY · DESIGN · TEST · EVOLVE Four phases Four tools Every phase gated by evidence TOOLS Customer & Value Canvas Prototypes & Choice Matrix Test Board Evolution & Monitoring 1 DISCOVERY Understand who you serve — and what they actually need. Talk to real customers · source every claim 2 DESIGN Generate solutions, then filter them honestly. Desirable · Feasible · Viable filter 3 TEST Pilot the strongest idea with real people. Cheapest test in front of a real person 4 EVOLVE Decide what changed, and keep watching what matters. → Bring It Studio G1 GATE — reviewed with the instructor PASS ✓ → Design REVISE & RETURN ↺ A real customer confirmed the need. Every claim is sourced. revise & return G2 GATE — reviewed with the instructor PASS ✓ → Test REVISE & RETURN ↺ Tested with real people. Evidence shown, not impressions. revise & return RECURRING MILESTONE REVIEW — repeats through Evolve, not just at the end ON TRACK → continue NEEDS INTERVENTION ↺ The rule that makes the gates work A team clears a gate by defending its evidence — not by ticking boxes. Talk to real customers first. Source every claim. Send the work back when the evidence isn’t there. ◇ instructor gate ↺ revise & return loop → proceed when evidence holds
Four tools, one arc

The tools you'll actually use

Each tool is a living document — not a form you fill in once. Return to it as your understanding deepens, your team changes, or your venture pivots. A canvas that no longer reflects reality is worse than no canvas at all. Tap any tool to open it.

A founder-ready value-proposition design: a Customer Profile you discover, and a Value Map you design. When the right side answers the left, you have fit. This is Gate 1: the Discovery Portfolio.

The Customer Profile

Customer

Name the specific, observable customer segment. "Students" is not specific enough.

Jobs

What they're trying to get done — functionally, socially, emotionally.

Pains

What frustrates them before, during, and after the job.

Gains

What outcome or benefit they actually want.

The Value Map

Products & Services

What you're actually offering.

Pain Relievers

How your offer removes a specific pain.

Gain Creators

How your offer produces a specific gain.

The Fit Exercise

Coverage matrix

Rank your top-ranked jobs, pains, and gains, then show which reliever or creator answers each one — gaps included.

Scope decision

Make a real call on what you will and won't build for, based on the coverage you found.

Gate 1 — Discovery · cleared with your lead mentor
  • Had at least five real customer conversations.
  • A real customer described the need in their own words.
  • Every claim on the profile is sourced.
  • Jobs, pains, and gains are ranked through the ranking/severity/relevance exercises.
  • Every top pain has a reliever and every top gain a creator.
  • I built an honest coverage matrix, including the gaps, and made a real scope decision.

Build two to three rough prototypes people can react to, scan your competition and the market, sketch a lightweight business model — revenue, costs, channels — then use a choice matrix to pick your strongest concept. This is Gate 2: Prototypes & Choice Matrix.

Prototyping Log

Prototype A / B / C

Genuinely distinct concepts, not variations on one idea.

Assumption tested

What each prototype was actually built to learn.

Feedback

What real people said and did — not what you hoped they'd say.

Competitive & Market Scan · Business Model Exploration

Key competitors & trends

Specific, and tied directly back to your value proposition.

Revenue, costs, channels

A sketch of the model — plus the founder's money check: does this actually work?

Choice Matrix

Desirability · Feasibility · Viability

Score each concept honestly on all three, plus differentiation from what's already out there.

Gate 2 — Design · cleared with your lead mentor
  • Explored multiple genuinely distinct prototypes and got real feedback on each.
  • My competitive & market scan is specific and ties back to my value proposition.
  • I sketched a revenue model, key cost drivers, and channels, and ran the founder's money check.
  • I used the choice matrix with honest scoring, and my selected concept is justified by the results.

Surface your critical, make-or-break assumptions, design a real test for the riskiest one, run it, and synthesize what you learned. A test is not the final product — it's the cheapest version of your idea you can put in front of a real customer. This is Gate 3: Test Results.

The loop

Critical assumptions

Name the single riskiest, make-or-break assumption — and why it's the one that matters most.

Test plan

Method, metric, success condition, and call to action — all set in advance, before you run anything.

MVP / experiment log

Run the test with real people. Record what actually happened, not what you expected.

Results synthesis

Honestly separate validated from invalidated, with real evidence to back it up.

Gate 3 — Test · cleared with your lead mentor
  • I named the single riskiest, make-or-break assumption and why.
  • Each assumption has a test plan: method, metric, success condition, and call to action set in advance.
  • I actually ran the test(s) with real people.
  • My results synthesis honestly separates validated from invalidated, with real evidence.

Tell the evidence-driven story of how your venture evolved, make a pivot-or-preserve call on every core element, and build the metrics plan you'll actually use going forward. This is Gate 4: Bring It Studio, the final gate.

Evolution narrative

What changed since Discovery, and why — told through evidence, not impressions.

Pivot vs. preserve

A reasoned call on every core element of your venture, tied directly to evidence.

Ongoing monitoring plan

Specific metrics, targets, frequency, and an owner — not a vague intention to "keep an eye on it."

Final presentation checklist

Customer, problem, value proposition, evidence, and decision — you can answer all five clearly.

Gate 4 — Bring It Studio · your final Go/No-Go presentation
  • My evolution narrative is evidence-driven, naming what changed and why.
  • Every core element has a reasoned pivot/preserve call tied to evidence.
  • My monitoring plan has specific metrics, targets, frequency, and an owner.
  • I can answer customer, problem, value proposition, evidence, and decision clearly.
The rule that makes the gates work

You clear a gate with evidence — not optimism

A gate you pass on optimism is a gate that fails you later. Gates aren't self-checked. They're checkpoints you walk through with your lead mentor, who is there to pressure-test your evidence — not to rubber-stamp it.

A founder clears a gate by defending its evidence — not by ticking boxes. Talk to real customers first. Source every claim. Send the work back when the evidence isn't there. If you can't defend an item out loud, you're not through the gate — and learning that now is the point.
01 · Show

Bring the evidence — conversations, a test result, a customer's own words — not a feeling that you're ready.

02 · Defend

Walk your lead mentor through it out loud. If you can't, the gate isn't clear.

03 · Decide

Pass and proceed, or revise and return — recorded, with what must be true to pass.

Learn from the usual traps

Common mistakes — and what to do instead

Most first ventures fail the same handful of ways. Name them now, and you can dodge them. Each card is a trap on the left and the fix on the right.

01

Jumping to solutions too early

Complete Tool 1 in full. Do not open Tool 2 until your canvas is finished and a real customer has confirmed the need.

02

Building before testing

Test the simplest version of your idea first. An untested solution is just a guess dressed up as a plan.

03

Falling in love with one number

Pressure-test your riskiest assumption before you scale around it. One unproven number can sink an otherwise solid model.

04

Confusing interest with commitment

"I'd totally buy that" isn't evidence. A paid order or a signed pre-commitment is worth more than a hundred compliments.

05

Avoiding bad news

Surface problems early. A wrong assumption caught in week two beats one caught in week ten, when it's too late to fix.

06

Treating tools as paperwork

These tools are how the work gets done, not how you report on it after the fact.

Just beginning?

Start with Tool 1, the Customer Profile. Complete the full canvas before any solution work.

Need already defined?

Move to Tool 2 — prototype it, scan the market, and run the choice matrix before testing.

Have a filtered concept, not yet tested?

Go to Tool 3, the Test Board. Run a real test before building anything further.

Already building or launching?

Start with Tool 4, the monitoring plan — then backfill Tools 1–3 so your evidence trail is complete.

Annex A · Worked example

One venture, start to finish

All four tools, filled out for one fictional venture — Pocket Lunch, a pre-order lunch pickup for students with back-to-back classes — so you can see the standard to aim for. Watch three things: the founder's thinking evolves as she learns, the entries stay specific, and each tool feeds the next.

VenturePocket Lunch
Focus areaCampus food, pre-order pickup
CustomerStudents, back-to-back classes
FounderMaya (solo)
Tool 1 · Discovery

The pain wasn't "healthy" — it was time and place

Maya's customer: students with back-to-back classes in the Hackman building, 11–2, with no time to reach the dining hall. She assumed the draw was healthy food; five conversations showed it was time and location — students wanted to "not have to think about it." Her sharpest reliever became in-building pickup at the exact passing period.

5 conversations before any solutionNeed statement revised after interviews
Tool 2 · Design

The model worked — on one unproven number

Maya priced it at $6.50 a box. The math worked — but it leaned entirely on whether students would pre-order and pre-pay by the morning cutoff. She circled that as her riskiest assumption and carried it into Tool 3.

Price $6.50/boxCost ≈ $2.40Margin ≈ $4.10Break-even ≈ 22/day
Tool 3 · Test

Fourteen paid orders beat a hundred "I'd totally buy that"

Her test: a one-day pilot — an order form in two class group chats, a real "Reserve — $6.50" button, a 10 a.m. cutoff. Right if ≥20 paid, wrong if <8. It landed in between, and the surprise was in the timestamps: students ordered last-minute, not the night before.

14 paid ordersmost 9:30–10:156 walk-ups
Tool 4 · Evolve

Preserve the offer, pivot the channel

Her Gate 3 test proved demand real but the ordering window wrong — students decide last-minute, not the night before. Segment, offer, and pricing all held up as Preserve; only the ordering cutoff and channel mix changed. Her monitoring plan now tracks daily boxes sold, repeat rate, and walk-up share.

43 boxes / 3 days9 weekly orders2 risks logged

What this example shows. Maya did not start with a perfect plan. She revised her need statement after the first interviews. She priced the offer around one unproven number, then designed a real test around it before scaling anything. And when the test proved demand but disproved her timing, she preserved what worked and pivoted only what didn't — then built a monitoring plan to keep watching. That is exactly what good founding looks like: not a founder who never gets it wrong, but one who tests the riskiest guess first, reads the evidence honestly, and adjusts. Use it as a standard to aim for — not a template to copy.

Who's here to help

Your lead mentor

Every founder in Forge has one first call — a student a few steps ahead who knows these tools inside and out.

SB
Director, CLIMB · Associate Professor

Sergio Bellino, MSA

Oversees CLIMB and both studios — Ruth McKee School of Business.

CS
Lead Mentor

Chase Slikkers

Forge's lead mentor — your first call when a venture gets stuck, and your sounding board before a gate.

Where to find it

Resources

The full FORGE Founder's Field Guide — every fillable worksheet, all four tools, and the gates — is posted on eClass. Check your MGNT 291/491 course page for the current version.

Every venture, one map

The Forge Ventures Board

Every current Forge venture, placed on the phase it's actually in. This board is read-only and updated monthly by CLIMB staff — ask your lead mentor if you don't see your venture on it yet.