The Four-Box Segmentation Worksheet
From the Trellis Method · SproutVest Operator Coaching
Every customer hypothesis earns engineering time only after it survives four boxes. Fill them for one segment at a time, in ink, in this order. If two segments end up on one sheet, you have not chosen yet.
Tip: print this page (or save it as PDF) for a clean one-pager with room to write.
1 · Segment
Who exactly is this, in observable traits you could filter a list by?
Where do they already gather, and who do they already pay?
Who looks like this segment but is not in it?
2 · Need
What problem do they have, stated in their words, not yours?
How often does it occur, and how badly does it hurt when it does?
What do they do about it today, including nothing?
3 · Value
What is solving this worth, in their budget's units?
Who signs, and what were they paid to care about this quarter?
What would make them stop paying?
4 · Ethical Boundary
Who will you not serve, even at full price?
Which uses of your product will you not permit?
Where is the line that does not move for revenue?
If box 4 is empty, boxes 1 through 3 are not finished. The Ethical Boundary is not decoration. It is what makes the other three boxes trustworthy, because a segmentation with no refusals in it was reverse-engineered from revenue, and acquirers, regulators, and your own engineers can all tell.