market-research

Competitive analysis collects product reality rather than marketing copy, funding and investor history, public traction metrics, distribution and pricing clues, and positioning gaps. Each finding should be sourced and translated into implications for your own strategy.

Investor due diligence collects fund size, stage, typical check size, relevant portfolio companies, public thesis, and recent activity. It also identifies reasons the fund is or is not a fit and flags red flags or mismatches before outreach.

Market sizing combines top-down estimates from reports or public datasets with bottom-up sanity checks based on realistic customer acquisition assumptions. Every leap in logic requires an explicit assumption, and estimates must be labeled as such.

A decision-oriented report includes an executive summary, key findings, implications, risks and caveats, a recommendation, and sources. Important claims need attribution, stale data must be flagged, and fact, inference, and recommendation stay clearly separated.

Desk research cannot validate actual customer demand or willingness to pay. For those questions, direct customer interviews, pilots, or sales experiments provide evidence that secondary sources cannot supply.