Section 01
What is a what-if company simulation?
A what-if company simulation is a structured scenario exercise that models how customers, buyers, competitors, partners, and internal teams may respond when one business variable changes. Examples include changing price, entering a market, removing a feature, switching channels, or launching an enterprise plan.
The goal is not to create a perfect digital twin of a company. The goal is to reveal assumptions, second-order effects, segment conflict, and the evidence needed before committing resources.
Section 02
The company simulation canvas
| Canvas field | Question to answer | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Decision | What commitment is being considered? | Launch an enterprise tier |
| Intervention | What changes in the world? | Annual contracts and admin controls are added |
| Actors | Who reacts or is affected? | Users, CFOs, admins, sales, competitors |
| Alternatives | What happens if we do nothing? | Keep self-serve and improve activation |
| Constraints | What limits the scenario? | Two engineers and one quarter |
| Evidence | What would confirm the result? | Five buyer interviews and a pricing page test |
Section 03
Six company scenarios worth simulating
- Pricing change: What happens to demand, perceived value, and approval when price increases or packaging changes?
- Market entry: Which segment has the strongest pain, budget, reachability, and competitive opening?
- Channel change: What happens if acquisition moves from founder-led sales to partners, content, or paid acquisition?
- Product subtraction: Which users are harmed if a low-usage feature or integration is removed?
- Competitive response: How might incumbents, substitutes, or adjacent tools respond to the new offer?
- Funding or diligence: Which assumptions would make an investment thesis fragile under a different market condition?
Section 04
How to run the simulation
- Write the baseline: what is true today and what workaround exists?
- Change one major variable at a time so the scenario stays interpretable.
- Build distinct panels for users, buyers, decision-makers, and affected non-customers.
- Ask for reactions, actions, objections, switching conditions, and second-order consequences.
- Compare the scenario with a do-nothing control and at least one alternative.
- Turn the biggest uncertainty into a real-world experiment with a named owner and deadline.
Section 05
How to interpret the output
Look for convergence, disagreement, and missing evidence. Convergence shows where the scenario is understandable. Disagreement shows where segmentation, messaging, incentives, or implementation needs work. Missing evidence identifies what the simulation cannot responsibly answer.
FAQ