Key early GTM decisions

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---
title: "Key Early Decisions"
source: notion
notion_id: "2caa03cd-67a9-809a-96c6-ff2f7d20a5fc"
migrated: "2026-04-02"
last_edited_in_notion: "2025-12-29"
status: active
tags: [gtm, strategy, decisions, icp, business-model]
---

# Key Early Decisions

# GTM CORE DECISIONS

## 1. Business Model: Enterprise vs. SMB vs. Solo Operators

This decision defines how we sell, price, and support the product and allows us to set expectations for sales functions, resourcing, contracts, and compliance.

| Option | What this implies | Key Requirements | Notes / Trade-offs |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Enterprise SaaS** | Sell to larger teams and organisations | Inside sales person; possibly outside/field sales; sales deck & demos; longer sales cycles; contracts & procurement | Higher ACV, slower learning, higher trust/compliance expectations |
| **Individual subscribers** | Sell to individuals or small teams | Self-serve signup; payments & billing configuration; clear pricing page; low-touch support | Faster feedback loops, lower ACV, higher volume needed |
| **Hybrid (Enterprise + SMB)** | Serve both segments simultaneously | Sales motion and self-serve payments; clear segmentation in pricing & messaging; more product & ops complexity | Risk of being unfocused early; flexibility if executed carefully |

## 2. ICP: Agency Side Researchers vs. Client Side Researchers

This decision defines the primary customer we design, message, and prioritise for first, impacting product depth, UX, onboarding, and GTM.

| ICP Option | Typical Profile | Research Sophistication | Primary Needs | Product Implications | GTM Implications | Risks / Trade-offs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Agency Market Researcher** | Professional researchers working in agencies delivering studies for multiple clients | **High** — trained researchers, strong methodology, high standards | Advanced research tooling; methodological flexibility; efficiency across multiple projects; client-ready outputs | Powerful, flexible workflows; advanced analysis features; fewer guardrails, more configurability; strong export / reporting capabilities | Sales to experienced buyers; faster credibility checks; likely higher expectations in demos; often multi-seat, multi-project usage | Higher bar for product depth; more feature requests early; risk of over-building complexity |
| **Client-side Market Researcher** | Researchers embedded in product, marketing, or insights teams; often transitioned from other roles | **Low–Medium** — mixed experience, less formal research training | Guidance and structure; "best practice" workflows; confidence in doing research "correctly"; stakeholder-friendly outputs | Opinionated workflows; templates and defaults; guardrails and explanations; simple, guided analysis | More education-led sales; longer onboarding; easier to impress initially | Risk of misuse if guidance is weak; higher support burden; feature requests may conflict with best practice |
| **Hybrid (Agency + Client-side)** | Serve both agency and in-house researchers | Very mixed | Flexibility and guidance; ability to grow with user maturity | Progressive disclosure (simple → advanced); configurable workflows with sensible defaults | Harder messaging; need to segment demos and onboarding | High complexity early; risk of unclear positioning |

## 3. Primary Job / Problem to win FIRST

This decision defines the core research problem we commit to solving exceptionally well first. It enables us to anchor our product focus, build a relevant roadmap, and launch messaging.

*Notes:*

1. *This will surface 50% from our strategic decisioning and 50% from market researcher interviews. I'll do the interviews and then will summarise and report them for our meeting.*
2. *From this list we decide which level of proficiency we want to establish at each stage.*
   - *Which stages are we providing only the tablestakes requirements to compete?*
   - *Which stages are we consciously choosing to prioritise with delighters to win the market?*

| Job Area to Win | What the Customer Is Hiring Us For | Product Emphasis | UX / Workflow Style | What We Explicitly De-prioritise | Risks if Chosen First | Target Fulfillment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Research Execution** | Plan and run research studies efficiently and correctly | Study setup; participant management; research workflows | Guided, opinionated, step-by-step | Deep analysis, long-term insight storage | Becomes a commodity; overlaps with many tools | to be filled in |
| **Research Analysis & Synthesis** | Turn raw research data into insights quickly and rigorously | Tagging; synthesis; pattern detection; sense-making | Flexible, power-user oriented | Study setup, recruitment, governance | High expectations from expert users | to be filled in |
| **Insight Repository / Knowledge Management** | Store, find, and reuse research insights over time | Search; taxonomy; linking insights to decisions | Structured but lightweight | Day-to-day research execution | Slower time-to-value; harder to demo; build from scratch | to be filled in |
| **Stakeholder Communication / Reporting** | Share insights in a way stakeholders actually engage with | Reporting; storytelling; sharing; collaboration | Polished, presentation-driven | Deep research rigor, advanced analysis | Risks competing entering a "presentation creation" market | to be filled in |
| **End-to-End Research Platform** | One tool to do everything research-related | Broad feature set across lifecycle | Complex, modular | Depth in any one area | Extremely large feature set requirements; diffuse value; very hard to win early | to be filled in |

## 4. Delight Criteria (Experience-level, not features)

This is not a new tier of decisions, just a **clarifying artefact**.

### Purpose

Define **what kind of delight matters**, without naming specific features.

### Example criteria (illustrative)

Depending on your Tier 1 choices, delight might mean:

- "I feel confident I'm doing this research correctly"
- "This saves me a huge amount of time"
- "This makes me look good in front of stakeholders"
- "This reduces the cognitive load of analysis"
- "This feels like working with a smart junior researcher"

These statements need to be:

- Outcome-focused
- Emotional as well as functional
- Independent of implementation

This gives us a **north star for delighters** without overcommitting.