How long should a go/no-go check take?

A first pass using this checklist can take an owner a few evenings. A thorough study with a live demand test usually takes several weeks. The size of the decision should set the depth.

What's the single most common reason ideas fail the check?

In our experience it's demand at the planned price. Owners often confirm that people want the thing but not that enough of them will pay enough for it, often enough.

Can I run this checklist on an existing business's expansion?

Yes, and it's usually more reliable, because you can use your own sales history instead of public estimates for some of the steps.

Go/No-Go Feasibility Checklist for a Small Business

A go/no-go check is a short, disciplined way of finding the one assumption that would sink your idea before it costs you real money. You write down what must be true for the business to work, set a pass mark for each, gather the cheapest strong evidence, and decide. This guide walks through the seven steps we use, with a worked example you can adapt. It's the same backbone as our feasibility studies, simplified so you can try a first pass yourself.

Step 1: State the decision in one sentence

Write the decision as a yes-or-no question with a date and an amount.

Weak: "Should I start a meal-prep business?" Strong: "Should I sign a three-year lease on a commercial kitchen in [Town] and commit $65,000 to equipment and launch by [Month]?"

The strong version tells you what's at stake and when you need the answer. It also stops scope creep. You're not deciding whether meal prep is a good industry. You're deciding whether this commitment, in this place, makes sense.

Step 2: List the deciding assumptions

Most small-business ideas rest on a handful of assumptions. Find the three or four that, if wrong, would make the business fail.

For the meal-prep example, they might be:

Demand: at least 120 paying subscribers within six months, within delivery range.
Price: subscribers will pay $85 a week for the core plan.
Margin: ingredients, packaging and delivery cost no more than 45% of revenue.
Acquisition cost: a new subscriber costs no more than $90 to win.

Notice what's missing: the logo, the menu design, the brand name. Those matter later. They don't decide feasibility.

Step 3: Set pass marks before you look

For each assumption, write down the result that would mean "proceed" and the result that would mean "stop." Do this before gathering evidence.

Assumption	Proceed if	Stop if
Demand	60+ refundable pre-orders in four weeks	Fewer than 25
Price	Pre-orders hold at $85	Most pre-orders only at the discount tier
Margin	Supplier quotes at or below 45%	Above 55%
Acquisition cost	Test ads produce pre-orders at $90 or less	Above $150

The gap between proceed and stop is your "not yet" zone, where you change one thing and test again. Setting these in advance is the most valuable discipline in the whole process, because once numbers start arriving, almost anything can be talked into looking encouraging.

Step 4: Gather the cheapest strong evidence first

Evidence comes in tiers. Use the cheap tiers first and spend on the expensive ones only when the cheap ones look promising.

Tier 1: free desk research

Competitors. List every business serving the same buyers within reach. Record their prices, offers and visible weaknesses, such as reviews complaining about delivery or portion size.
Public data. Population and household counts for your area, and federal small-business figures for context. Key Small Business Statistics 2025 reports, for example, that 68.0% of new businesses with 1 to 99 employees were still operating five years after entry. That's a national average, not your odds, but it's a useful reminder of why the check matters.
Search interest. Whether people in your area are already searching for the thing you'll sell.

Tier 2: low-cost conversations

Talk to 10 to 20 likely buyers. Ask about what they do now and what they spend, not whether they'd like your idea. "What did you eat for lunch on your last three workdays, and what did it cost?" tells you more than "Would you try a meal-prep service?"

Tier 3: paid behavioural tests

A landing page with a refundable pre-order, backed by a small ad budget aimed at your delivery area. Our guide to validation experiments covers how to design one honestly.

Step 5: Price the costs with real quotes

Estimates are where optimism hides. Replace every guess with a quote or a published price.

Start-up costs: fit-out, equipment, deposits, initial stock, website, licences and permits.
Monthly fixed costs: rent, insurance, software, utilities, base wages and owner pay.
Variable costs per sale: materials, packaging, delivery, payment fees.
The cash gap: the months of losses before revenue covers costs. This is often larger than the start-up spend and is the item owners most often leave out.

The Government of Canada's starting a business page links to federal guidance on registration, permits and licences. Provincial and municipal requirements vary, so check with each authority directly; our province pages link the main business registries.

Step 6: Run the break-even and runway numbers

With costs and prices in hand, two calculations tell you most of what you need.

Break-even volume = monthly fixed costs ÷ contribution per sale.

In the meal-prep example, if fixed costs are $11,000 a month and each $85 subscription contributes $47 after ingredients, packaging and delivery, break-even is about 234 subscription-weeks a month, or roughly 54 active subscribers each week.

Cash runway = the cash you have available ÷ average monthly loss during ramp-up.

If you expect to lose $6,000 a month for the first five months while subscribers build, you need at least $30,000 of working capital beyond the start-up spend, plus a buffer. Our guide to break-even and cash runway works through this in more detail.

Step 7: Write the verdict down

Put the result on one page.

Verdict: go, no-go or not yet.
Each deciding assumption: the pass mark, the evidence, and whether it passed.
If not yet: the single change you'll test next, such as a different price, a smaller delivery area or a shared kitchen instead of a lease.
If go: the smallest first commitment that still proves the model.

Writing it down matters. It makes the reasoning visible to a partner or spouse, and it gives you something to check against in six months.

Common traps

Sunk-cost thinking. You've already spent time on the idea, so stopping feels like losing. It isn't. Stopping before the lease is the cheapest exit there will ever be.
Testing the wrong thing. A beautiful brand that gets compliments tells you nothing about demand at your price.
Only one scenario. Always ask what happens if demand comes in 30% below plan.
Counting on a program. Grants, rebates and incentives change. A feasible idea works without them; if it only works with one, that's a fragile plan.
Ignoring seasons. Across most of Canada, demand for many services shifts sharply between winter and summer.

When to bring in help

If the decision is large, if partners disagree, or if the evidence is mixed, an outside view is worth paying for. We run full studies and tests; the pricing page shows the published rates, and the first 30-minute conversation is free. Call, text or email with your one-sentence decision from Step 1.

The go/no-go feasibility checklist