# The Loop Check (one page)

From *Startup Engineering* by Selva Ganapathy — startupengineering.io/loop-check

**1. Place yourself by what exists, not what you intend.**

- Conversations only → the Problem loop
- Something showable → the Solution loop
- Real money committed to a real build → the Product loop
- Strangers using it while the market is still being found → the Market loop
- The same customers returning without heroics → the Fit loop

**2. Name the hypothesis you're actually testing, in one sentence.**
Problem · solution · product · market · fit — your current answer, a
candidate, never an identity.

**3. Stamp every current worry with the loop where its question becomes real.**
(The decision titles are the index: startupengineering.io/decisions)

**4. Everything two or more loops ahead goes on the Not Yet list — written
down, and set down.**

Re-run every few weeks, and at every moment of panic.
Panic is usually a loop error.

---

My loop: ______________________

My hypothesis, in one sentence: ____________________________________________

| Worry | Loop where it becomes real | Now / Not Yet |
|-------|----------------------------|---------------|
|       |                            |               |
|       |                            |               |
|       |                            |               |
|       |                            |               |
|       |                            |               |

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