May 2023: Revealing Unknown Knowns

May 2023: Revealing Unknown Knowns

How experimentation challenges myths and assumptions within your company. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Pretotyping in action

Revealing Unknown Knowns

Spotted in the wild:

Mythbusting business assumptions through experimentation

In 2002, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, introduced the concept of Known Knowns, Known Unknowns, and Unknown Unknowns. When designing hypothesis for ideas to test with clients, it's interesting to see how pretotyping brings to light these "Unknown Knowns". In the world of data versus opinion, Unknown Knowns are the assumptions that are often treated as facts within companies, but in reality, they’re far from accurate — often by a considerable margin. This could relate to basic information such as market share percentages, customer numbers, customer activity rates, and more. Essentially, all thedata that lies beneath the visible metrics of revenue, profit, and other big shiny numbers. These Unknown Knowns are where the true opportunity and challenge of experimentation lies.

The purpose of running experiments is to decide whether to invest in a new idea, feature, or product. This requires a baseline, which helps us understand the 'X' in the 'At least X% of Y will do Z' statement. Without this baseline for success or failure, conducting the experiment would be pointless, because we wouldn't be able to determine whether it passed or failed. The advantage of applying pretotyping in organisations is that it allows us to uncover and understand the actual numbers, helping us make better decisions over time.

Want your 'in the wild' featured next month (and an Amazon gift card to boot)? Hop on over to our Slack channel!

What is the takeaway?

Approach all non-headline figures with skepticism and treat them as Unknown Knowns! The quality of your experiments and decisions will improve as you improve your understanding of accurate internal customer metrics to discover the true customer behaviour. But be prepared for resistance — nobody wants to be measured 😉

One thing

Image Source

"While some worry AI may take their jobs, someone who is expert with AI will." — Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO

Until next month, happy innovating! Leslie

Liked this? Pass it on! Share this newsletter:

Can't get enough of innovation? There's plenty more where this came from...

Get the Simple

Innovation Guide

Switch the question from “can we?” to “should we?” and start experimenting better in your business. Download the guide .

Rapidly is here!

Exponentially's rapid experimentation software solution is ready to help your business find winning ideas faster.

Join our pretotyping community

Our community is full of innovators from around the world – join us to ask questions, share ideas, and learn from the best.

Copyright © Exponentially, All rights reserved.

More blogs

July 2025: 12 experiments in 3 weeks. Here's what happens when teams prioritise velocity over perfection

Newsletter: July 2025: 12 experiments in 3 weeks. Here's what happens when teams prioritise velocity over perfection.

AI + Experimentation Resources

Experimentation Tools Directory: 10 Essential Tools for Innovation Teams. From AI assistants and design platforms to market research and analytics tools, covering the complete experimentation lifecycle from ideation to review. Experimentation tools include ChatGPT, Figma, Framer, Synthetic users, Rapidly and Heatseeker.

Why Your Idea Systems Are Just Popularity Contests

Idea votes are just opinions. See why Pretotyping beats popularity, and how to integrate experiments into your system. Fix your funnel today.

Set your organisation up to test ideas before you invest. And grow, exponentially.