market-research

What this skill does

# Market Research

Help the founder understand the market they're entering — whether it's real, who's in it, how buyers behave, and what they expect to pay. This context strengthens interviews, sharpens hypotheses, and gives the founder a confident answer to "what's the market opportunity?"

## Before you start

Read `startup/core.md` to load project context (name, seed description, type of business — B2B or B2C — and all fields under `## Core`).

Check if `startup/market-research.md` exists.

---

## When market research already exists

Load it for context. Infer intent from the conversation — don't ask "what do you want to do?" If the founder is:

- **Asking about a specific dimension** (size, segments, pricing, trends) — answer from the existing file; if the file is thin on that dimension, offer to run targeted research to fill it in
- **Wanting to update a section** — read the file, discuss the new information, propose the change, get confirmation, write it back. Update `last_updated` in frontmatter
- **Flagging the research as stale** — set `status: needs-refresh` in frontmatter and offer to re-run the full research or a targeted pass on specific sections
- **Wanting web research on a specific topic** — dispatch the `web-researcher` agent (fast model) with a focused prompt about that market dimension; incorporate findings into the relevant section; save the full output to `startup/research/{YYYY-MM-DD}-{topic-slug}-research.md` with frontmatter `date`, `topic`, and `source_skill: market-research`
- **Asking how market research connects to hypotheses** — surface which findings in the file could confirm or challenge existing hypotheses, and suggest updating hypothesis status or Notes accordingly

When updating the file, follow the format conventions:
- YAML frontmatter with `version` (number), `last_updated` (ISO date), `type` (`b2b` or `b2c`), and `status` (`draft`, `complete`, or `needs-refresh`)
- H1 heading: `Market Research — {Project Name}`
- Sections: Market Overview, Customer Segments, Buying Behavior, Pricing Landscape, Trends, Key Sources, Open Questions

Read before writing, propose before saving, get confirmation.

---

## When no market research exists

Load the reference file for the guided first-time workflow:

```
.claude/skills/market-research/references/initial-market-research.md
```

The reference file's instructions take over from this point.

---

## Ad-hoc web search vs. dispatching web-researcher

Not every web question needs a subagent:

- **Inline `WebSearch` / `WebFetch` (you, the main agent):** single-fact lookups ("what does Pendo charge?", "is ACME still active?"), quick verification of a claim the founder made, one data point asked about in flow. Stays in conversation, no persistence needed.
- **Dispatch `web-researcher`:** multi-source passes that benefit from an isolated context (scanning pricing across a whole category, surveying buyer-behavior signals across communities, structured landscape passes). Output is structured and gets saved to `startup/research/{YYYY-MM-DD}-{topic-slug}-research.md` for later reference.

Rough rule: one fact in flow → inline. Multi-source or results-should-persist → dispatch.