Customer Centric Solutions · Business Models as Loops

Do you have a growth loop?

Start with a quick self-assessment. Describe the trigger, the steps that follow, what compounds, and what the customer carries forward.

You'll receive an initial read based on your answers—not a final score. It shows whether your proposed loop appears to meet the framework's core tests and identifies what still needs to be validated.

You can then request the full scored report for a deeper evaluation of the loop's evidence, strength, risks, and opportunities.

For any leader who cares about growth and suspects the mechanism behind a number isn't actually compounding.

1Business Context → 2Loop type → 3Initial verdict → 4Request full report
Example 1 of 7 · Calendly, a User loop B2B

What it teaches

Try this

Illustrative self-assessment based on public information, not the company’s own answers or a paid diagnostic.

1. Product context Optional

A sentence or two on what the product is and who uses it. Shows up in your copied report, doesn't affect the verdict.

2. The growth curve test Optional

Before anything else: over the last 12 months or so, does growth bend upward, or does it track roughly linear with whatever you put into it? Name what you're counting, then pick the shape that looks most like it. A rough read is fine without exact numbers.

Growth curve resultSet by the shape you pick, or choose directly. Pass: bends upward over time. Fail: linear or a one-time step. Unsure: no series to point to, or not tracked closely enough to say.
PassFailUnsure
3. Growth loop type

A loop type is a category, based on what accumulates from one cycle to the next. What are you claiming compounds? Pick exactly one: check whichever of its signals actually match, or just click the type if you already know it. If you check a box under a different type, it swaps to that one, since this tool tests a single loop type at a time. If more than one genuinely applies, treat them as separate loops and run this again for each.

4. Fuel test (for the loop type above) Optional

Pick a loop type above to see what this asks. Answer it here and the full report scores it directly, otherwise it flags this as needing a quick call to confirm.

5. Trigger (what starts your growth loop?)

The repeatable cue that starts the cycle. Could you point to the exact moment it happens, every time?

How does it actually reach someone?
6. Sequence of user actions

Only things a person could watch or record happening. If the system does it, flag it, it belongs in Product Enablers instead. Most real loops take at least 3 to 4 steps to show the full cycle: fewer than that usually means a step got skipped, not that the loop is simple.

Do all of these happen on every single cycle?
Does the last step put the user back where the trigger could fire again?
7. Compounding asset (business-side) Optional

The business-side stock that's supposed to get larger or better every cycle. Leave blank if you're not there yet.

Unit testCan you name and count the specific unit that accumulates?
PassFailUnsure
Next-cycle testDoes more of it improve future cycles, not just this one, whether that shows up as cheaper acquisition, better retention, or lower cost to serve?
PassFailUnsure
Replication testWould a competitor have to recreate the underlying customer activity over time to match it, not just write a check?
PassFailUnsure
Retention testDoes the value stay with the business, or could it leave with a customer, employee, or platform?
PassFailUnsure
8. Retained value (customer-side) Optional

What the customer carries forward: a durable change such as confidence, fluency, belonging, or earned standing, that makes their next cycle easier, better, or more valuable. Write it in their own voice if you can.

Carry testIs this a durable change the customer carries forward, such as confidence, fluency, habit, belonging, or earned standing, not merely a balance or asset stored for them (credits, points, files, configuration)?
PassFailUnsure
Recreation testIf they started over elsewhere, would they have to relearn or rebuild it, rather than simply resubscribing, re-downloading, or transferring it?
PassFailUnsure
What kind of retained value is it? Select at least one.

9. Context signals Optional

Two questions about where this loop sits in the wider business, not about the loop itself.

Does a platform, marketplace, or channel partner sit between you and the customer relationship?
If this loop stopped tomorrow, would the business still bring in new customers some other way?
Initial verdict (self-assessed)

Top-level read
Get the full report

Everything above is the free, top-level read, whatever you've filled in so far. When you request the full report, we send a written copy to your inbox and a person looks at it, not just an autoresponder.

  • Graded, not just self-scored. We mark each answer Observed, Inferred, or Requires client input, the same evidence standard the paid diagnostic runs on.
  • The three failure flags, broken out. We score Trigger collapse (who could switch off your trigger), Binding constraint (what's actually capping growth), and Host misalignment (what a platform between you and the customer could take) separately for magnitude and confidence, instead of one flat list.
  • Built to actually send. A formatted copy you can forward to a cofounder or bring into a room, not a screenshot of this page.
  • Named next steps. The specific numbers or answers that would confirm this instead of leaving it a guess, and what's worth covering on a short call.