Full Reference: Channel Selection and Scoring Worksheet

Reference companion to Lesson 5.2 · Choose Your Channel Before You Send One Message - the commitment-rule phase table, how to read channel signals from your interview transcripts, the 4-dimension channel-fit scoring, the 4-channel comparison, the Engineering-as-Marketing side door, and the full fill-in worksheet. Read the micro-lesson first for the commitment rule and the ≥9/12 score; return here when you want the full worksheet and the four-channel comparison.

The commitment rule, phase by phase

Stick with one channel long enough to read the signal, not chase the algorithm. A cold-email sequence needs time to deliver, more time for replies to accumulate, and more time still before the “not now” replies reveal whether the non-replies are disinterest or bad timing.

Run a batch, call the channel dead because you got 2 replies right away, and you just threw away the signal.

The rule is not a ritual. It is the minimum data window that separates “this channel does not work” from “I ran this channel for a few days and panicked.”

How to pick from interview evidence

Your 10 interview transcripts from Module 2 already contain the channel signal. Pull them up and look for three types of clues:

Go through each transcript. Mark the channel signals. You will see a pattern across 10 interviews that you cannot see in any single conversation.

Channel-fit scoring, in full

Not every channel fits every product. Four dimensions narrow the field before you spend a single hour:

Score each candidate channel 1-3 on all four dimensions (1 = poor fit, 2 = moderate, 3 = strong). Add to get 12-point total.

Threshold rule. ≥9/12 = clear pick, commit to that channel. 7-8/12 = run a 1-week pilot on your top 2 channels first to break the tie; the higher reply rate wins. ≤6/12 = no channel is a strong fit; revisit your 10 interview transcripts for missing signal (channel-mention, daily-workflow, where-they-already-buy) before scaling outbound at all. Picking a 6/12 channel and committing is the failure mode the scoring exists to prevent.

The 4 channels for newbie B2B and B2C

At this stage you are choosing from four options. Here is what each one actually requires:

Pick the one that matches your buyer type, your price point, and your honest time budget - then commit.

A fifth play: Engineering as Marketing - a slower-burn, zero-CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost - what you spend to land one customer) option, not one of the four channels you score above. Building a free micro-tool (a pricing calculator, a checklist generator, a “which plan is right for you” grader) on a free no-code stack (Carrd + Tally + Notion) attracts targeted organic search traffic. Users who find the tool useful are pre-warmed leads for your main product. The tool ranks for long-tail SEO keywords your competitors ignore. One afternoon to build, zero monthly cost, and the traffic compounds over months. Unlike content marketing (blog posts), a functional tool has a different backlink profile and ranks for different intent - someone searching “SaaS pricing calculator for [vertical]” is closer to buying than someone searching “how to price SaaS.” The tool is not your product - it’s a free side door that feeds your product’s waitlist.

Channel Selection Worksheet

Fill this out before you send message one. It prevents the wasted-effort cycle of channel-hopping.

Fast-path exit: skip the worksheet if your interviews already named a channel. If your Lesson 2.3-2.4 interview transcripts pointed to a clear channel (e.g., 7+ of 10 interviewees found tools through LinkedIn, or 5+ named a specific Slack community), jump to Part 3: The Commitment below. Write your commitment statement and move to Lesson 5.3. The full worksheet is for founders still deciding between channels. Use it to decide between channels; skipping it does not block anything.

Part 1: Interview Evidence

Part 2: Channel-Fit Score

Score each candidate channel 1-3 on the four dimensions (1 = poor fit, 2 = moderate, 3 = strong). Add the four to a total out of 12. Use the per-channel guidance below as the anchor.

Part 3: The Commitment

Write this down. Literally write it. Skip this step and you are the founder who hops channels at the first cricket.

Keep this in the same Google Sheet as your interview transcripts. Look at it before you send each batch.

Further reading

• Lenny Rachitsky, How today’s fastest growing B2B businesses found their first ten customers - the channel breakdown across Figma, Stripe, Slack, Notion. Channel choice is the first lever, not the last.
• Brian Balfour, Why Product Market Fit Isn’t Enough - the case for channel-model fit as a distinct requirement from product-market fit. Strong reading for any founder who has a working product but no acquisition motion.
• Andrew Chen, The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs - why every channel degrades over time and why early-stage founders need to pick the channel that works now, not the channel that worked for a more established company 3 years ago.
• Lenny Rachitsky, How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users - channel selection stories from Airbnb, Tinder, Etsy, Reddit, including how each picked their first acquisition channel based on where their early customers actually lived online.

Built by JetThoughts as a companion reference to the From Idea to First Paying Customer free curriculum.