Killing two of three internal bets before the board meeting

The situation

An innovation team inside a mid-size logistics company had three internal pilots competing for one funded build slot. Each had a sponsor, a prototype deck, and no independent evidence — which meant the eventual decision was going to be political rather than data-driven, and whoever lost would have grounds to say so.

What we ran

Three parallel Market Tests, each with its own landing page, positioning, and paid traffic campaign, run identically so the results would be directly comparable across a steering committee presentation. We agreed on go-thresholds with the innovation lead before any traffic ran, specifically so the result couldn't be re-interpreted after the fact.

What happened

One idea cleared the agreed threshold with room to spare. One landed just under it. One missed by a wide enough margin that no reasonable reading of the data supported continuing.

Because the thresholds were set in writing beforehand, the steering committee conversation took nineteen minutes instead of the usual ninety.

The call

Go on the clear winner, formally sunset the other two. The innovation team used the same written report structure internally for the next two quarters of pilot reviews.

This is an illustrative example built to show how a Market Test report reads in a portfolio-decision context. Case studies drawn from real client engagements are being published as our founding cohort completes their sprints.