The most expensive positioning problem is the one discovered in revision round three of a design sprint.
Or in month four of a paid acquisition campaign.
Or on the day a launch video ships to zero conversions.
All three share the same root cause: positioning that was not specific enough to build on, deployed into a channel or asset before anyone checked if it was ready.
Rob Kaminski at Fletch uses three specific tests before recommending any company invest in design, channel spend, or a launch. Each takes under an afternoon. Each reveals a different dimension of positioning readiness.
All three are from Youroast Ep1 - Rob's own words.
Why litmus tests matter
The tests are not bureaucratic gatekeeping. They are a time-and-money-saving filter.
Running all three before a sprint saves weeks of revision rounds and thousands of dollars in design cost. Most teams skip them because they feel confident about the story. The stranger test is the one that reveals whether that confidence is warranted.
Most teams that fail the stranger test are genuinely surprised. The homepage that makes sense to everyone inside the company is the homepage that confuses everyone outside it. The test surfaces that gap in ten minutes instead of three design rounds.
Test 1: the team survey
What it tests: whether your own team agrees on what the company does and who it serves.
How to run it:
Create a free Google Form with three questions:
- What does our company do?
- What problem do we solve?
- Who do we serve?
Send it to everyone who will give feedback during the next design sprint or launch - founder, CMO, head of product, PMM, anyone whose opinion will shape revision rounds.
Do not discuss before submitting. Compare the answers after.
"It's a good litmus test of like, do you have a positioning problem? And the signal you do is when all the language is either super vague or everyone's saying different things. Like that means something's going on there." [Ep1, 22:45]
What to do with the results:
Everyone describes the same ICP in the same language - positioning is aligned, proceed to the stranger test.
Different ICP descriptions from different people - the design sprint will surface this disagreement in round two at design prices. Run an internal alignment session first.
Test 2: the stranger test
What it tests: whether your homepage can explain what you do to someone who does not know you.
How to run it:
Find someone who does not know your company - a friend, a colleague from a different industry, anyone unfamiliar with the product. Show them your current homepage with the logo covered. Give them thirty seconds to read.
Ask them: what does this company sell and who buys it?
"Go read the hero and all the headers of your homepage. Actually, it's even better if you pull them out and put them in a doc. Go read those. And even better yet, give it to someone who doesn't know what your company does, like remove your logo. Have them read that and then ask them if they know what the company does." [Ep1, 23:00]
The expected failure mode: "What we usually see is like you're not gonna see it. It's like increase revenue, get more customers, and then it's like streamlined, AI enabled, like it could be anything." [Ep1, 23:20]
What passing looks like:
The stranger reads the hero and can describe - in their own words, without prompting - what the company does and who it is for. Not the general category. The specific product and the specific buyer.
What to do with the results:
Stranger can describe it accurately - the story is ready to design against.
Stranger describes the category but not the specific product - the hero needs a copy rewrite before design begins.
Stranger describes what you do but not who it is for - the ICP is not specific enough in the hero.
Test 3: the sales-call audit
What it tests: whether the language your market uses to describe their problem is reflected in your homepage.
How to run it:
Pull the last ten discovery calls (or customer interviews). Index on one question: what were buyers actually shopping for when they found you - what use case or job were they trying to solve, what solution did they have before?
Then compare that language to your homepage copy.
"I would go aggressively audit every single prospect and sales conversation you've ever had, especially for customers, and I would index on what were they shopping for when they came to me, like what use case or job were they trying to solve, what solution did they have." [Ep1, 23:50]
What to look for:
- The specific words buyers use to describe the problem
- The specific outcomes they were trying to achieve
- The specific alternatives they were considering
If those words are not on the homepage, the homepage is not speaking the buyer's vocabulary. Design will not fix that. Copywriting can, before design begins.
What to do with the results:
Buyer language matches homepage language - the story is speaking the market's vocabulary.
Buyer language is absent from the homepage - update the hero copy before briefing a design sprint.
Running all three in sequence
The three tests address three different failure modes:
- Team survey - internal misalignment. The founding team does not agree on what the company does.
- Stranger test - external illegibility. The homepage cannot explain the product to a cold visitor.
- Sales-call audit - vocabulary misalignment. The homepage uses language the market does not use to describe its own problem.
All three can fail simultaneously. Usually one failure mode is more acute. The team survey failure is the most expensive to fix because it requires a strategic positioning decision before any tactical work can proceed. The stranger test failure is the most common. The sales-call audit failure is the most overlooked.
Run them in order. Fix what each one surfaces before proceeding to the next.
What to do when a test fails
Team survey fails: stop before the next sprint or channel investment. The positioning decision has not been made. Read the Fletch positioning framework for B2B software companies for the process for making it.
Stranger test fails: rewrite the hero before briefing a design agency. The visual system cannot fix a claim a stranger cannot understand. Read fix positioning before you redesign for the full prerequisite framework.
Sales-call audit reveals vocabulary misalignment: update the homepage copy to use the buyer's language. Then brief the design sprint around the updated copy.
All three tests combined take one afternoon. They are the cheapest investment available before any sprint, channel, or launch.
What to do next
Start with the team survey today. Create the Google Form, send it to the five people who will give feedback on your next sprint. You will know within twenty-four hours whether the positioning decision has been made.
Read the companion articles:
- Fix positioning before you redesign - the full framework for what to do when tests fail
- Why one ICP outperforms multiple segments for B2B software companies - the ICP focus argument that underpins test 1
- The 2D homepage versus the 3D sales conversation - what the stranger test is actually testing for
Watch the full episode: Youroast Ep1 with Rob Kaminski.
