Product–customer coupling · workshop
Your product works.Why won't they switch?
- First
- Who switches to you first, and why now?
- Next
- Who comes after them, and are they really alike?
For teams selling to organisations, before their first customers or looking for the next ones. In a room or over video, with a facilitator. You learn to map the rivals inside a customer: what they already use to keep their numbers up, and where your product could get in. Then you practise on your own product in Coupling Kata: describe a customer you're chasing, interview an invented stand-in, and rebuild their matrix. The skill is yours to use with real customers.
Who it is for
For
- Teams selling to organisations, before their first customers or looking for the next ones.
- Teams that want to learn why a customer switches, or doesn't, not a pitch review.
Not for
- Consumer / B2C ventures — the framework lands differently.
- Projects without a customer who could switch: research-only or non-commercial work.
The paper
v7 · April 2026The customer is already running a regulator that keeps their business alive. Your product proposes to alter it. PMF selects on whether the alteration is worth its cost. One mechanism — the customer's regulator — explains switching cost, timing, iteration, and pivot survival. Four phenomena, one structure.
About the facilitator
Dr. Tamas Babel
management consulting · corporate executive leadership · venture founding · academic research
The mapping between Ashby's regulator and product–market fit emerged from cofounding two deep-tech ventures and running into requisite variety the hard way. The workshop is the practitioner side of that work: the theory, taught by someone who has sat on both sides of the table, and a place to practise it.
Questions
How long is it?
It depends on the team and the setting, and is agreed when you request a session.
Is this consulting?
No. It is a workshop: the theory in plain terms, one worked case, then practice on your own product. The facilitator does not tell you what to build or whom to sell to.
What do we need to prepare?
One real customer you're chasing: the business, the person you'd be in the room with, and one sentence on what you sell. Bring a laptop or phone.
What happens to what we share?
What you type into Coupling Kata goes to Anthropic, whose AI model plays the customer. This site does not store it. Your answers to the short questions after each part are kept with no name attached, and deleted once the workshop has been reviewed, or after 30 days at the latest. Anything you tell the facilitator directly stays between you.
Is this the paper?
No. The paper sets out the theory. The workshop teaches it in plain terms and adds the coverage matrix and Coupling Kata for practice.
What about analytics?
The site uses Plausible Analytics — no cookies, no personal data, no cross-site tracking.
Request a session
Tell me where your venture is.
Send who your customers are and where the venture stands. You'll hear back from the facilitator.