Pre-Mortem highlights and allows us to hunt down most product success obstacles before even MVP development started.

Recently we at co-Found.xyz shared Basic Sample MVP Scope article. MVP Scope is strong take for product success. But Pre-Mortem highlights and allows us to hunt down most product success obstacles before even MVP development started. This isn’t a 100% accurate guide—just a working draft to get you quick started.

Pre-Mortem analysis job is to test the business idea for “viability”: predict the reasons for a possible failure and suggest ways to avoid it.

With possible reasons for failure (lack of budget, coding errors, regulatory rejection, low demand, the market turned out to be too small, the technical solution was too complex and expensive to maintain, competitors released a similar free feature a month after our launch, we were unable to get marketing right, and customer acquisition cost more than it generated) we do:

compile and categorize the list (causes brainstorm)
classify them by probability (risk analysis)
classify by impact (risk analysis)
plan preventive actions (solutions development)

Practical Structure

1. Product/Service Description (Introduction)

Here’s a brief overview:

what it is
for whom
what problem it solves
how it makes money
why people should use it

For example:

“An online service delivering farm-fresh produce to residents of major cities.”

Or:

“A mobile app for finding local repair professionals.”

No need for a lot of text.

2. Hypothetical Scenario of Failure / Disaster / “Obituary”

This is the main part of the methodology. It goes something like this:

“Twelve months after launch, the project shut down. There weren’t enough users, expenses exceeded revenue, and customers didn’t return.”

“Twelve months after launch, the platform has zero growth in active users, and investors have stopped funding.”

Options:

There weren’t enough active users who had already been attracted
Customers didn’t return
Growth in active users is too low
The platform has zero growth in active users
expenses exceeded revenue
investors stopped funding

Critically important:

Write as if the failure has already happened
not “could happen,” but “has happened”

This psychologically helps you think more honestly.

3. Reasons for Failure (The Killers)

This is the core of the work. Here you need to figure out:

what could have gone wrong
why the business didn’t survive

Generate 15–30 reasons for failure. Even if they seem absurd at first. Divide the reasons into categories.

The best categories for analysis

Market

No real demand
The problem isn’t that important
People aren’t willing to pay
the market is too small
Low retention

Competition

There are already strong competitors
the product isn’t unique
Competitors have larger budgets
Competitors have released a similar free feature

Finances

The launch is too expensive
unit economics don’t add up
Advertising costs more than revenue
insufficient budget

Product

Complex UX
The product solves the “wrong” problem
Failure to deliver on promises
Unstable service performance
difficulty scaling
Too complex and expensive to maintain

Marketing

No customer acquisition channel
incorrect target audience
Weak positioning
Reliance on paid advertising

Operations

Can’t keep up with order processing
logistics issues
reliance on a single person

Team

Conflicts
lack of skills
burnout

Legal / external factors

Regulations
seasonality
economic crisis

4. Risk Assessment

Use a simple scale: Probability and Impact on the project. List the top 5 most dangerous / critical risks in a table:

Risk	Probability	Impact	(?) How to avoid
No demand	High	Critical	MVP + customer interviews
Expensive advertising	Medium	High	SEO / partnerships / referral model
Technical bugs	Medium	Medium	Testing

5. How to Avoid Failure: “Threat — Countermeasure”

For each problem/critical cause of failure, you must specify: what we will do now to prevent this from happening in the future:

what to do
how to test the hypothesis earlier
how to reduce the risk — preventive action