Your technology works. Will anyone adopt it?
A free self-assessment that shows the risks that stop new technologies reaching the market: cost, demand, capital, supply chains, regulation, permits and community. It tells you what evidence you have, what is still a guess, and what to test next.
Built on the U.S. Department of Energy's Adoption Readiness Levels, with the Business Model Canvas, I-Corps customer discovery and TRIZ problem solving in one place. Free, private, no account.
Working in the lab is only half the climb
Most programs track Technology Readiness Levels: does it work? Many technologies that work still stall because they cost too much, nobody is ready to buy, or a permit, supplier or community says no. Adoption Readiness Levels measure that second climb.
ARL rates 17 risks in four areas:
Value proposition
Delivered cost, performance, ease of use.
Market acceptance
Demand, market size, the value chain that sells and installs it.
Resource maturity
Capital, project delivery, infrastructure, manufacturing, materials, workforce.
License to operate
Regulation, policy, permitting, safety, community perception.
Four toolkits that are usually taught apart, in one assessment
Each one answers a different question. Here they sit on one workbench and feed a single picture of your readiness, instead of four separate worksheets.
- 17 risks rated Low, Medium or High, with your reasoning
- Every rating checked against your evidence
- An adoption readiness score from 1 to 9
- A plan for the risks that matter most
What makes it different
It looks past the lab
Regulators, permitting offices, insurers, installers and neighbors can all slow adoption. The assessment covers them alongside customers and cost.
It checks your claims
You get two scores. One uses your ratings. The other counts any optimistic rating without evidence behind it as Medium. The gap shows how much rests on hope.
It keeps track of your customer discovery
A place to log every interview and link it to the claims it supports or contradicts. Your weakest claims become an interview guide, with questions grouped by who to ask.
It counts doing nothing as a competitor
A competitor table starts with the status quo, usually your strongest rival, and feeds your cost, performance and demand ratings.
It works on trade-offs
When fixing one risk makes another worse, a TRIZ worksheet and a 17 × 17 contradiction matrix suggest ways out.
It stays yours
No account, and no server that stores your work. What you enter stays in your browser and in files you choose to save.
Who it is for
Founders, students and researchers
For university spinouts, lab scientists, student teams, independent developers and anyone with a technology and a hunch it could be a business.
- See which of the 17 risks could stop your technology, in an afternoon.
- Separate what you know from what you hope, with a score that shows the difference.
- Size your market bottom-up (TAM, SAM and SOM) and check that the customers you can win would cover your costs.
- Keep track of your customer discovery in one place: every interview, linked to the claims it supports or contradicts.
- Walk into your next customer, regulator or supplier conversation with the right questions.
- Leave with a plan: tests, owners, dates and the rating each test should change.
- Bring a clear PDF report to a mentor, investor or grant reviewer, with your questions for them.
Mentors, programs and instructors
For incubator and accelerator staff, tech transfer offices, I-Corps and Lean LaunchPad instructors, and anyone who supports a cohort.
- Give every team the same structured, evidence-based starting point.
- Meet teams who arrive with a report and specific questions instead of "any feedback?"
- Load every team's save file into the Cohort View and see the whole group at once.
- Spot the risks many teams share and plan workshops, speakers and introductions around them.
- Compare versions to see real progress between sessions. No accounts to manage, nothing stored on a server.
Cohort View, example cohort: demand (B1) and capital (C1) are High for three of four teams.
How it works
Six steps, in order. Each step builds on the one before.
- ScopeDescribe the technology, its TRL and your timeline.
- Business modelCustomer, market size, revenue, partners, competitors, unit economics.
- Rate 17 risksPick the description that fits today, and say how you know.
- Score and evidenceTwo scores, your risk profile and every unsupported claim.
- Resolve trade-offsWork on up to three focus risks with TRIZ.
- Plan and exportTests, owners and dates. PDF, Excel or a save file.
A first pass takes one to two hours. Come back as you learn more: every interview you log updates your evidence.
Nothing you type leaves your browser
Early ideas and unpatented inventions are sensitive. The Workbench runs entirely on your own computer, so there is nothing to sign up for and nothing to leak.
Your work is saved in your browser, never on a server. We count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which shows us only totals such as page views and countries, never anything you enter.
Save a file to keep a copy, move to another computer, or send it to a mentor.
The method and the content are open for anyone to read, reuse and critique. The full source code will be published after initial testing.
Find out what could stop your technology, before the market does
The Workbench opens with a finished example, so you can see a complete assessment before you start your own.