{"id":1125,"slug":"rule-surface-and-reframe-in-house-comparator","title":"R4 — Surface and reframe the in-house comparator; the implicit competitor is \"my cousin / my admin\"; reframe it as a bet with its own probability of failure","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["psychology-aversion","entrepreneur-cognition","persuasion-design"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Every pitch implicitly competes against \"my cousin / my admin / my nephew will do it.\" The question to put on the table is **not \"will you hire us?\"** but **\"what is your plan and what is the probability of execution failure?\"**\n\n**Why:** The overconfidence stack ([[camerer-lovallo-1999-overconfidence-reference-group-neglect]], [[cooper-woo-dunkelberg-1988-entrepreneur-overconfidence-81pct-33pct]], [[busenitz-barney-1997-entrepreneur-vs-manager-overconfidence]]) means the in-house option is evaluated optimistically *unless* Candid explicitly surfaces it. The financial pitch is evaluated in the loss domain at steep slope; the in-house pitch is evaluated in the gain domain with reference-group neglect — see [[overconfidence-in-house-comparator-pattern-for-gc-pitches]]. Reframing makes the comparison genuinely apples-to-apples.\n\n**How to apply:**\n- In discovery: ask directly what the GC has tried before and what happened. Do not leave the in-house option implicit.\n- In proposal: include a short section comparing the Candid engagement to the in-house alternative on three dimensions: cost (including opportunity cost of GC's own time), timeline, and probability of completion.\n- The point is not to attack the comparator; it is to make the buyer evaluate both options under the same decision rule.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"research-brief-risk-aversion-post-failure-may-2026","title":"Research brief: risk aversion, loss aversion, and post-failure decision patterns in GC and trades-business decision-makers (May 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"overconfidence-in-house-comparator-pattern-for-gc-pitches","title":"The \"my nephew can build it\" pattern — loss-aversion on the invoice + overconfidence on in-house execution as mechanistically linked","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"camerer-lovallo-1999-overconfidence-reference-group-neglect","title":"Camerer & Lovallo 1999 (AER) — \"reference-group neglect\"; entrants over-enter when ranking depends on skill, lose money in most rounds","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"cooper-woo-dunkelberg-1988-entrepreneur-overconfidence-81pct-33pct","title":"Cooper, Woo, Dunkelberg 1988 (JBV) — 2,994 entrepreneurs; 81% rated odds of success 7+/10; 33% rated 10/10 vs ~50% 5-year base-rate failure","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[]},"created_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:31.094Z","updated_at":"2026-05-25T13:13:31.094Z"}