Week 1: See the whole product

Outcome: you can draw your product on one page and name every part that matters. You have started customer discovery.

Why start here

Beginners think: “One product, one repo.” That works for a weekend project. A serious product needs a dozen repos or more. An AI agent sees one repo at a time. Only a human sees the whole map. That human is you.

Step 1: Write the idea in one paragraph

Write it yourself. Name the user, the problem, one success number and a date.

TrailMug helps coffee drinkers stop using throw-away cups. A customer pays a small monthly fee, gets a reusable cup, and swaps it for a clean one at any partner café. She never carries a dirty cup. We aim for 500 active members in six months.

Use the product brief template.

Step 2: Count the repos

A repository (repo) is one folder of code or content under version control. List every repo your product needs. Think about:

Planning: product brief, journeys, decisions.
The public website and landing pages.
The app customers use.
Small services that do one job each.
Workflows that call other systems in order.
Systems you rent: payments, email, a customer list (CRM), a support desk.
Operations: policies, help pages, a status page, analytics.
Infrastructure: how everything is hosted and deployed.

Most beginners list three or four. After the prompts, the list grows. A serious product reaches 12 to 25.

TrailMug first guess: planning, website, app, payments. After walking the journeys: add a partner-café sign-up page, a cup-return tracking service, a welcome-email workflow, a CRM, a help centre, a status page, analytics, a privacy policy repo and an infrastructure repo.

Use the repository map template and read Repository map standard.

Step 3: Register your integrations

An integration is a tool from another company that your product uses. Each one serves a part of the business. Write down who owns it and what data flows. Use the integrations register.

Step 4: Start discovery

Run a 60-minute workshop with 4 to 6 people. Then interview five real users. Questions and the script are in Week 2. Book the interviews this week.

Exercises

Write your one-paragraph idea.
Draw the product on one page: who uses it, which parts exist, how they connect.
Fill the repository map. Count the rows.
Fill the integrations register.
Book five interviews.

Coach checkpoint

Walk your coach through the one-page map in 10 minutes. Say what you are unsure about.

Self-check

I wrote the idea myself.
My map has a dozen repos or I wrote down why not.
Every repo has one named human owner.
Every integration has a purpose and an owner.
Five interviews are booked.