luckiest-co 1.0.38 → 1.0.40

package/skills/marketing-plan/SKILL.md

@@ -0,0 +1,289 @@
+---
+name: marketing-plan
+description: When the user needs a comprehensive marketing plan for a client, a company they advise, or their own product. Also use when the user mentions "marketing plan," "growth plan," "GTM plan," "go-to-market plan," "AARRR plan," "90-day marketing plan," "12-month marketing roadmap," "fractional CMO plan," "fCMO plan," "market sizing," "TAM SAM SOM," "how big is this market," or "market research." Generates an exhaustive 13-section plan structured by AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue), customized to the client's current budget, team, and stage, mapped to future funding milestones, cross-referenced with the 139-idea marketing-ideas library and an embedded 17-section current-state audit rubric, with a full marketing operations stack showing which skills and MCP/API integrations execute each part. Outputs a Notion-paste-ready markdown document. For positioning and ICP context before planning, see product-marketing. For stage-specific deep work, see onboarding, signup, emails, referrals, pricing.
+license: See ATTRIBUTION.md
+metadata:
+  version: "1.2.0"
+  listing_id: luckiest-marketing-plan
+  author: luckiest
+---
+
+# Luckiest Marketing Plan
+
+## Staying current
+
+On activation, call the Luckiest MCP check_updates tool with { listingId: "ec6f5811-1e2b-4f71-9345-3f21a0328e5e", installedSemver: "1.2.0" }. If it returns upToDate: false, surface the notice to the user once, then continue. Do nothing further if upToDate: true. Never block on this check — if the tool is unavailable, proceed.
+
+You are an expert marketing strategist operating at fCMO (fractional CMO) level. Your job is to produce a comprehensive, executable 12-month marketing plan for a specific client or company, structured by AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue), customized to their actual budget, team, stage, and capabilities, and cross-referenced with the full marketing-ideas library and the embedded 17-section current-state audit rubric.
+
+The deliverable is a single Notion-paste-ready markdown document — the kind of strategy artifact a fractional CMO would present to founders. It must be specific to the client (not generic), exhaustive (covers every tactical surface area, not just what's prescribed), and operationally honest (reflects what their team can actually execute with their current stack and headcount).
+
+When the skill's work is done, call the Luckiest MCP report_usage tool once with { listing_id: "luckiest-marketing-plan", skill_version: "1.2.0", matched: true, success: <true if the skill completed, false otherwise> }. Metadata only, never prompt text. Never block on it — if the tool is unavailable, skip silently.
+
+## When to use
+
+Invoke this skill when:
+
+- A user is starting a new client engagement as a fractional CMO or marketing consultant
+- A founder needs a 12-month marketing roadmap they can share with their team or investors
+- A team wants to consolidate scattered marketing work (SEO research, brand voice docs, audit findings, onboarding analyses) into a single coherent plan
+- The user explicitly asks for a "marketing plan," "growth plan," "GTM plan," "fCMO plan," "AARRR plan," or "90-day + 12-month marketing roadmap"
+- An existing scored audit (from any prior current-state assessment) needs to be sequenced into an action plan
+
+**Do not use** when the user wants a tactical execution document for a single channel (use the channel-specific skill instead — `emails`, `ads`, `seo-audit`, `onboarding`, etc.), or when the user just wants marketing ideas without commitment to a plan (use `marketing-ideas`).
+
+## How this skill is invoked
+
+```
+/luckiest-marketing-plan {client-name-or-domain}
+```
+
+Examples:
+- `/luckiest-marketing-plan quietude.app`
+- `/luckiest-marketing-plan acme-saas`
+- `/luckiest-marketing-plan` (will prompt for client name)
+
+On invocation, the skill reads `~/marketing-plans/{client-slug}/progress.md` and resumes based on the state machine documented in `references/methodology.md` Step 1.1.2 (fresh → INIT → REVIEW → FINALIZE → finalized). Finalized plans are never silently overwritten — the user is asked whether to revise as v{N+1}, start fresh, or re-open a section.
+
+**Path safety.** Build `{client-slug}` only by slugifying the client name to lowercase `[a-z0-9-]` (strip everything else); reject `..`, `/`, and absolute paths, and never read or write outside `~/marketing-plans/`. On a shared machine this keeps one client's plan and their data from leaking into another client's context.
+
+## The three phases
+
+The full workflow lives in `references/methodology.md`. Quick summary:
+
+### Phase 1 — INIT (research + intake)
+
+Read all available materials about the client. Pull data from any wired tools (Ahrefs, GA4 MCP, Stripe MCP, etc.). Conduct structured intake covering: client overview, ICP, current funnel state, funding state, team composition, marketing budget, channels currently active, what's already been done, what's in-flight, what's stuck, tooling stack. Save to `research.md`.
+
+Use the embedded 17-section current-state rubric (`references/current-state-rubric.md`) as your scoring lens for Section 3 — score each section 0–5 against available materials.
+
+### Phase 2 — REVIEW (walk through each of 13 sections interactively)
+
+Present each section's draft in chat. For each section you can:
+- Approve as-is ("good," "next")
+- Adjust ("change X to Y")
+- Add observations ("also mention Z")
+- Expand ("go deeper on this")
+
+Save each confirmed section to the progress file as you go. The skill is resumable — if interrupted, run `/luckiest-marketing-plan client-name` again to pick up at the next unfinished section.
+
+### Phase 3 — FINALIZE (compile + verify + publish)
+
+Compile all 13 sections into `final_plan.md`. Run a verification pass: confirm cross-references (marketing-ideas idea numbers, related skills, MCP integrations) are accurate; check for machine-specific paths that shouldn't ship; ensure the brand voice matches what was captured in the strategic frame.
+
+Optionally offer to publish to a shared GitHub repo (e.g., `{client-org}/{client-context}/marketing/plan.md`) if the user wants to share it with the team.
+
+**Luckiest network hook (offer only, never automatic).** After the plan is finalized, offer once: "Want me to surface an anonymized outline of this plan's AARRR structure and stage to your Luckiest tribe? Anyone building a marketing plan for a company at the same funding stage will see the shape of what worked here." If they accept, share only the section structure and stage — never client names, budgets, unit economics, or credentials. If they decline, stop and never re-prompt. Do not post anything without this explicit acceptance.
+
+## The 13-section plan structure
+
+Full template lives in `references/plan-template.md`. The structure:
+
+1. **Executive summary** — 3 big bets, 90-day priorities, 12-month outcome. Written so it can be lifted into an investor or board update. Each big bet states an explicit **kill criterion** — the observable result by which date that would make the team stop the bet — not just what success looks like. This keeps the plan from turning into a sunk-cost list.
+2. **Strategic frame** — Category claim, ICP distilled, business-model logic, brand voice non-negotiables.
+3. **Current state** — Team, budget, what's done, what's in-flight, what's stuck. Scored against the embedded 17-section current-state rubric (`references/current-state-rubric.md`).
+4. **Acquisition** — How strangers become aware. Channels current + planned + skipped, 90-day and 12-month moves, skills + tools.
+5. **Activation** — How a new user has an experience that converts. Onboarding, first session, App Store / signup, paywall, lifecycle setup.
+6. **Retention** — How a converted user stays and deepens. Lifecycle flows, churn prevention, win-back, support-as-marketing.
+7. **Referral** — How retained users bring more users. Ambassador / affiliate / Guides / WOM mechanics.
+8. **Revenue** — Pricing, packaging, upsells, bundles, hardware-to-software, B2B ACV.
+9. **90-day roadmap** — Weeks 1–2 (Unblock), 3–4 (Foundation), 5–8 (Velocity), 9–12 (Compound). AARRR-tagged, owner-assigned.
+10. **12-month outlook** — Quarterly milestones tied to funding-stage capability unlocks.
+11. **Marketing operations stack** — Marketing skills + MCP/API integrations mapped to each AARRR stage. Capability unlocks by funding stage.
+12. **Tactical idea bank** — All 139 ideas from `marketing-ideas` cross-referenced to AARRR + client-specific status (Now / Q2 / Q3+ / Q4+ / Skip).
+13. **Measurement, RACI, open decisions, appendix** — North-star metric, leading indicators by stage, RACI table, blocking decisions, links to deeper docs.
+
+When the Strategic frame raises "is this market big enough?", size it with `references/market-sizing.md`: TAM/SAM/SOM, four triangulated methods (bottom-up, search-led, competitor-led, channel-led), a 10-factor attractiveness scorecard, and confidence-labeled ranges in place of single precise numbers.
+
+## The AARRR framing
+
+AARRR replaces the older "channels and tactics" approach because it forces every recommendation to be funnel-stage-tagged, which makes the plan executable in priority order.
+
+Full primer in `references/aarrr-framework.md`. Quick rule:
+
+- **Acquisition** = strangers → aware (top of funnel)
+- **Activation** = aware → first valued experience (signup, onboarding, first session)
+- **Retention** = repeat users (lifecycle, churn prevention, deepening engagement)
+- **Referral** = retained users → bring more users (programs, viral mechanics)
+- **Revenue** = monetization (pricing, upsells, bundles, ACV expansion)
+
+Brand and content are **cross-cutting**, not their own AARRR stage — they serve every stage.
+
+## The current-state rubric
+
+The plan's "Current State" section scores the client against the embedded 17-section rubric. Full rubric in `references/current-state-rubric.md` — it's the source of truth, not a derivative of any external skill.
+
+If the user already has a separately scored audit, ingest those scores directly into Section 3. Otherwise, score from available materials using the rubric as your lens — mark "scored from materials" in the section header so the team can push back where they have better data.
+
+## Cross-references — skills this plan integrates with
+
+1. **`marketing-ideas`** — 139 proven marketing tactics. Section 12 of the plan cross-references every one to AARRR + client status. Detail in `references/idea-cross-reference.md`.
+2. **`product-marketing`** — Sets up the foundational `.agents/product-marketing.md` context file (positioning, ICP, voice). Read this first; Section 2 (Strategic frame) builds on it.
+3. **AARRR-stage-specific skills** — `onboarding`, `signup`, `emails`, `referrals`, `pricing`, etc. The "Marketing operations stack" (Section 11) maps these to AARRR stages.
+
+The plan is **opinionated about which skills serve which stages.** Full mapping in `references/ops-stack-mapping.md`.
+
+## The marketing operations stack
+
+This is the differentiator of an fCMO-style plan vs. a generic marketing plan. The plan doesn't just say *what* to do — it says *what skills and tooling execute it.*
+
+A small team + an fCMO + the marketing-skills library + MCP integrations can output the work of a 15–20-person traditional marketing org. The plan must show this stack explicitly, AARRR-stage by AARRR-stage.
+
+Full mapping in `references/ops-stack-mapping.md`.
+
+## Funding-stage capability unlocks
+
+Every plan must include explicit "what changes when funding closes / when budget unlocks" reasoning. This makes the plan investor-friendly (founders mid-raise see what they're buying) and operationally honest (we're not pretending the team can spend $50K/mo on paid before the round closes).
+
+Standard tiers in `references/funding-stage-unlocks.md`:
+- **Pre-seed / bootstrapped** — $0–$2K/mo total marketing spend; organic only
+- **Seed close** — $5–$15K/mo paid test budget; first marketing hire
+- **Seed deployment** — $20–$50K/mo paid; second marketing hire
+- **Series A** — $50–$150K/mo paid; performance + content + designer; international consideration
+- **Series B+** — $150K+/mo paid; brand campaigns; PR firm; full-stack marketing org
+
+Use these as anchors. Adjust for category (consumer apps and ecommerce can spend more; deep-tech B2B may spend less).
+
+## Setting the budget scientifically
+
+The funding-stage anchors above tell you *what's in the ballpark*. To set the actual number defensibly, use one of two methods (full detail in `references/budget-planning.md`):
+
+1. **Revenue-Based (5–40% of ARR)** — start from comfortable spend, forecast resulting revenue. Best when historical CAC data exists.
+2. **Goal-Based** — reverse-engineer the budget from the revenue target. Formula: `[(New ARR / (ARPC × 12)) × CAC] / annual retention rate`. Best for fundraising or when the goal is fixed.
+
+Always add **10–20% experimental budget** on top — CAC is the main dependency, and the experimental layer is what funds the next-channel investment before the current one plateaus.
+
+For VC-backed Series A+ clients, anchor the 12-month outlook against the **3-3-2-2-2 rule** (3× in years 1–2, 2× in years 3–7 from $1M ARR).
+
+## Growth patterns — the real shape of SaaS growth
+
+Pitch decks show hockey sticks. Real growth is a series of S-curves with plateaus between them. Full framework in `references/growth-patterns.md`. Key implications for the plan:
+
+- **Phase identification** — $0–10K ARR (grueling), $10K–100K (treacherous middle), $100K–1M (acceleration). Section 3 names the current phase; Section 10 sequences the next.
+- **Linear vs step-function** — most healthy SaaS growth is linear (predictable additions per month) punctuated by step-functions (enterprise tier launch, new segment, channel breakthrough). The plan should describe both honestly — not promise exponential.
+- **S-curve layering** — Channel × Product × Market. Start the next S-curve while the current one is still growing. Riding any single S-curve to its ceiling before investing in the next produces multi-month plateaus.
+
+## Team and agency model
+
+Strategy lives in-house. Execution can — and often should — be outsourced. Full framework in `references/team-and-agency-model.md`. Three implications for every plan:
+
+1. **First hire is a strategist, not a tactician.** Look for a **π-shaped marketer** (two deep skill sets) — common high-leverage combos: Product Marketing + Growth Marketing, Product Marketing + Content Marketing, Growth Marketing + Content Marketing.
+2. **Title conservatively.** First marketing hire is almost always Manager or Lead, not VP or CMO. Inflated titles paint the org into a corner when you scale.
+3. **Use contractors and small niche agencies for execution.** Most pre-Series-A companies should rely on individual contractors for nearly all outsourced work; deepen agency relationships as the company moves into Growth Stage and Scale Stage.
+
+## What every plan must customize
+
+A generic plan is a failed plan. Every plan must explicitly customize for:
+
+1. **Current marketing budget** — exact $/mo, broken down by line (paid, tools, headcount, retainers). Plus blended CAC (must include salaries, content costs, tools, retainers — not just paid ad spend) and current %-of-ARR allocation.
+2. **Unit economics** — ARPC, annual retention rate, LTV. These feed the budget math in Section 8 and Section 10.
+3. **Team composition and surface area** — every person who touches marketing, with what they own. Identify whether the strategic owner (if there is one) is π-shaped, T-shaped, or tactical-only.
+4. **What the client is currently doing** — by channel, with status (working / not / TBD).
+5. **What they've already done that should be acknowledged** — past launches, PR moments, content, partnerships. Don't write a plan that ignores work they're proud of.
+6. **Phase of SaaS growth** — $0–10K ARR / $10K–100K / $100K–1M / $1M+. Each phase has its own binding constraint.
+7. **Future funding milestones** — when the next round closes, what budget tier that unlocks, and which capability comes online (first hire, paid channels, agency relationship).
+8. **The marketing skills mapped to specific moves** — every move in the AARRR sections names the skill that executes it.
+9. **The API/MCP/tool connections that enable execution** — every move names the tooling that makes it doable without hiring.
+
+If you can't confirm any of these in INIT, list them in Section 13's "Open decisions" — never gloss over them. **CAC unknown is the highest-impact open decision** — every revenue projection depends on it.
+
+**Tag the confidence of every number.** Because founders lift these projections straight into investor and board updates, each revenue, CAC, LTV, and budget figure carries a confidence tag: `[measured]` (from the client's own data), `[benchmarked]` (from a comparable company or category norm), or `[assumed]` (a placeholder pending data). This keeps a modeled figure from being read as a verified one, and it makes the "Open decisions" section self-populating — every `[assumed]` on a load-bearing number is a candidate open decision.
+
+## Common client-type variations
+
+Plan structure stays consistent. What changes:
+- **B2B SaaS** — Acquisition leans on SEO + content + outbound + LinkedIn. Activation = signup + product trial. Retention = product engagement + CSM motion. Referral = customer advocacy. Revenue = expansion / NRR.
+- **D2C consumer app** — Acquisition leans on App Store + paid social + influencer + PR. Activation = onboarding + first session + paywall. Retention = lifecycle email + push. Referral = sharing mechanics. Revenue = subscription + upsell.
+- **Hardware-led** — Acquisition leans on PR + retail + Amazon + Shopify SEO. Activation = unboxing + setup + first use. Retention = software companion + community. Referral = gifting + reviews. Revenue = blended LTV hardware + accessories + subscription.
+- **Marketplace** — Activation has two sides (supply + demand). Retention is repeat transaction frequency. Revenue is take-rate × GMV.
+- **Developer tool** — Acquisition leans on technical content + DevRel + documentation SEO. Activation = first build / first integration. Retention = depth of integration. Referral = team adoption.
+
+Detail in `references/client-types.md`.
+
+## Quality bar
+
+What separates a good plan from a generic one:
+
+**Good plan signals:**
+- Every move names the AARRR stage it serves
+- Every recommendation is anchored in real client data (their actual budget, their actual team, their actual current channels)
+- The 90-day roadmap has owners, not just actions
+- The funding-stage section explains what changes when the next round closes
+- The ops stack section names specific skills + MCPs per move
+- The idea bank shows what we're *not* doing and why (skipped ideas with rationale)
+- The exec summary can stand alone — could be lifted into an investor update
+- Open decisions are explicit, not glossed over
+
+**Failure modes to avoid:**
+- Listing tactics without sequencing
+- Recommending things the team can't execute at current size
+- Pretending paid budget exists before the round closes
+- Glossing over uncomfortable metrics (e.g., churn) instead of naming them as open decisions
+- Generic language ("build a community," "improve SEO") without specific moves
+- Ignoring brand voice — every plan section must respect the client's voice rules
+- Padding the plan with skills/ideas the client doesn't actually need
+- Not acknowledging work the team has already done
+
+## Output format
+
+The final deliverable is a single markdown file: `~/marketing-plans/{client-slug}/final_plan.md`.
+
+Headers (`## 1. Executive summary`, etc.) are H2 for clean Notion paste. Tables for any structured comparison (RACI, idea bank, ops stack). Status legend for the idea bank. Internal references to other sections use `§N` (e.g., "see §5 for Activation detail").
+
+Length expectation: ~8,000–12,000 words for a comprehensive plan. Shorter is fine if the client is early-stage with limited surface area; longer is fine if the client has years of history to acknowledge.
+
+## File layout per plan
+
+```
+~/marketing-plans/
+└── {client-slug}/
+    ├── materials/         # Client-provided files (decks, audit output, brand-voice doc, etc.)
+    ├── research.md        # Research record written during INIT
+    ├── progress.md        # State machine — phase, current_section, approved artifacts, plan_version
+    ├── sections/
+    │   ├── 01.md          # Each approved section saved as a canonical artifact
+    │   └── ...            # Zero-padded so they sort in order
+    └── final_plan.md      # Compiled deliverable (FINALIZE output)
+```
+
+The full schema for `progress.md` and the resumption decision tree live in `references/methodology.md` Steps 1.1.1 and 1.1.2.
+
+## Related skills
+
+- **`luckiest-product-marketing`** — Run first. Captures positioning, ICP, voice in `.agents/product-marketing.md` so every section of the plan references the same foundation.
+- **`luckiest-marketing-ideas`** — Source of the 139 tactics in Section 12.
+- **`luckiest-customer-research`** — Deepens the ICP and voice-of-customer inputs that feed Section 2 (Strategic frame).
+- **`luckiest-onboarding`** — Deep work on Section 5 (Activation).
+- **`luckiest-emails`** — Deep work on Section 6 (Retention) + onboarding emails in Section 5.
+- **`luckiest-referrals`** — Deep work on Section 7 (Referral).
+- **`luckiest-pricing`** — Deep work on Section 8 (Revenue).
+- **`luckiest-seo-audit`** / **`luckiest-ai-seo`** / **`luckiest-programmatic-seo`** — Deep work on the SEO portion of Section 4 (Acquisition).
+- **`luckiest-ads`** / **`luckiest-ad-creative`** — Deep work on the paid portion of Section 4 once budget unlocks.
+- **`luckiest-launch`** — Deep work on launch moments inside Section 4 / Section 9.
+
+## Task-specific questions (used during INIT)
+
+The full intake questionnaire lives in `references/methodology.md`. The most important questions:
+
+1. **Funding state** — What round are you in? How much raised so far? Burn? Runway? Upcoming rounds and timing?
+2. **Team** — Who are all the people who touch marketing? What does each own? Where are the gaps?
+3. **Budget** — What's the current monthly marketing spend, broken down by paid acquisition, tools, retainers, headcount? What budget unlocks when the next round closes?
+4. **Current channels** — What's working today? What's not? What have you not tried yet?
+5. **Already done** — What past campaigns / launches / content / PR moments should this plan acknowledge?
+6. **In-flight** — What's drafted but not shipped? What's blocking each item?
+7. **Tooling stack** — What's wired? Customer.io / Mailchimp / Resend? Shopify / Stripe / App Store Connect? GA4 / Mixpanel / Amplitude? GitHub / Notion / Figma?
+8. **Beta or GA?** — If product is in beta, what's the GA timeline? Throttling? What gates exist?
+9. **The most important thing to fix this quarter** — founder's read.
+10. **The most important thing to ignore this quarter** — what looks important but isn't.
+
+## How exhaustive should the plan be?
+
+Default to comprehensive. Founders share a plan with their team and investors; brevity here is false economy. A 10,000-word plan with the right structure is more useful than a 3,000-word plan that misses the ops stack or the idea bank.
+
+That said: don't pad. Every section should be **dense, not bloated**. If a section has nothing to say, write that explicitly — "Q4+ — long-game / not in scope for this 12-month plan" is honest and useful.
+
+## A note on tone
+
+This plan is written for founders who are sharp, busy, and skeptical of marketing-speak. Write like a thoughtful colleague, not a deck-slide-writer. No jargon for jargon's sake. Direct claims, named tradeoffs, explicit assumptions. When unsure, name the open question rather than guessing.
+
+The exec summary should be short enough to read in 60 seconds. The rest should reward deep reading.

package/skills/marketing-plan/references/market-sizing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,166 @@
+# Market Sizing
+
+Adapted from a contribution by @imMamdouhaboammar (PR #418).
+
+Use this reference when the Strategic frame (Section 2) raises the question "is this market big enough to plan around?" or when the user asks directly how big a market is. The goal is a defensible range that supports a decision (enter, narrow, validate, or avoid). A precise-looking number with no visible math does more harm than an honest range.
+
+## Define the market first
+
+Sizing a vague category ("healthcare," "SaaS") produces a meaningless number. Before estimating anything, write a one-sentence market definition covering geography, buyer, use case, and price model.
+
+> AI note-taking tools for sales teams at English-speaking B2B SaaS companies with 20-500 employees, sold per seat.
+
+State what is out of scope too (adjacent segments, other geographies, enterprise).
+
+## TAM, SAM, SOM in plain terms
+
+| Layer | Plain meaning | Narrowed by |
+|---|---|---|
+| **TAM** (total addressable market) | Annual spend if every possible buyer of this category bought | Category definition only |
+| **SAM** (serviceable addressable market) | The slice you could actually serve with your product as it exists | Geography, segment, use case, language, price band, integrations |
+| **SOM** (serviceable obtainable market) | What you can realistically win in the next 1-3 years | Channels, budget, sales capacity, conversion rates, competition |
+
+SOM is the number that matters for a marketing plan. TAM mostly matters for fundraising narratives, and a large TAM proves nothing about demand. Size TAM only when someone needs it.
+
+## The four sizing methods
+
+The mini-examples below use one made-up product (an AI note-taker for sales teams) with illustrative numbers, to show the math. They aren't real market data.
+
+
+No single method is reliable alone. Run at least two, then compare.
+
+### 1. Bottom-up
+
+`reachable buyers × expected annual spend × realistic capture rate`
+
+Best for local services, B2B niches, agencies, and marketplaces where buyers can be counted.
+
+**Mini-example** (sales note-taker, SAM):
+- ~18,000 B2B SaaS companies in range (LinkedIn company filter, Crunchbase export)
+- Average 8 sales seats each, $25/seat/month = $2,400/year per account
+- SAM ≈ 18,000 × $2,400 = **~$43M/year**
+- SOM at 1-2% capture by end of Year 1 = **$0.4M-$0.9M ARR**
+
+Weak points: the seat count and capture rate are assumptions. Label them as such.
+
+### 2. Search-led
+
+Estimate demand from high-intent keyword clusters, then apply click and conversion assumptions.
+
+**Mini-example:**
+- High-intent cluster ("AI meeting notes for sales," "Gong alternative," "sales call summary tool"): ~9,000 searches/month across 40 terms
+- Achievable click share at page-one rankings: 10-20% → 900-1,800 visits/month
+- Visit-to-trial 4%, trial-to-paid 20% → 7-14 new accounts/month
+- At $2,400/year per account: **~$0.2M-$0.4M new ARR/year** from search alone
+
+Search volume is an intent proxy. It measures people actively looking, which undercounts latent demand and categories buyers don't search for by name. CPC levels and competitor ad density show how much others will pay for that intent.
+
+### 3. Competitor-led
+
+Infer market size and maturity from what competitors visibly earn.
+
+**Mini-example:**
+- 6 direct competitors; 2 report ARR publicly or via press (~$15M and ~$8M), the other 4 estimated from headcount (~40-80 staff each at ~$150K revenue per employee → ~$6M-$12M each)
+- Combined visible revenue: **~$47M-$71M**
+- Cross-check: review counts on G2 and Capterra, pricing pages, hiring pace, ad activity
+
+If the combined revenue of competitors is larger than your SAM estimate, your SAM is probably too narrow (or competitors serve segments you excluded). In this example, $47M-$71M exceeds the $43M bottom-up SAM, which suggests competitors also sell to enterprise or non-sales teams. If combined revenue is tiny, the category may be early or the demand may be weaker than it looks.
+
+### 4. Channel-led
+
+Size the market you can reach through specific channels with the current budget. This is often the most useful number for an early-stage plan because it bakes in execution limits.
+
+**Mini-example** (Seed stage, $10K/month paid budget):
+- LinkedIn: target audience of ~60,000 sales leaders in segment; $10K/month at ~$80 CPL → ~125 leads/month → 10% to paid → ~12 accounts/month
+- Outbound: 1 SDR, 1,000 accounts/month, 1.5% meeting rate, 25% close → ~4 accounts/month
+- Combined: ~16 accounts/month ≈ **~$0.45M new ARR/year**, capped by budget and headcount
+
+### Triangulate and cross-check
+
+Put each method's result side by side for the same layer (usually SOM or SAM):
+
+| Method | SOM estimate (Year 1) | Key assumption | Confidence |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| Bottom-up | $0.4M-$0.9M | 1-2% capture | Medium |
+| Search-led | $0.2M-$0.4M (search channel only) | 10-20% click share | Medium |
+| Channel-led | ~$0.45M | $80 CPL holds at scale | Low |
+
+How to read the comparison:
+- **Compare like with like.** The search-led figure covers one channel, so it's a floor for SOM rather than a competing estimate. Here, bottom-up and channel-led agree around $0.4M-$0.5M, and search alone gets about halfway there, which is consistent.
+- **Estimates overlap** → the overlap is your working range.
+- **Estimates differ by more than ~3×** → one assumption is broken. Find it before presenting any number.
+- **Bottom-up far exceeds channel-led** → demand exists but the plan can't reach it yet. That points to a budget or channel constraint, which belongs in Section 10 (funding-stage unlocks).
+- **Channel-led far exceeds bottom-up** → the reachable-buyer count is probably too low, or the channel assumptions are optimistic.
+
+Top-down analyst reports can serve as a sanity check on TAM. Don't use them as the primary method for a local or niche market, because global category figures rarely translate.
+
+## Evidence and confidence
+
+Label every estimate and every major input.
+
+| Label | Use when |
+|---|---|
+| **High** | Two or more independent evidence types agree, or first-party data (CRM, conversion data, paid search terms) supports it |
+| **Medium** | Credible but incomplete evidence, e.g. competitors are active but their revenue is estimated |
+| **Low** | Plausible inference with thin support, e.g. a global trend with unknown local adoption |
+| **Unknown** | Missing or contradictory data. Turn it into a validation task |
+
+Rank evidence by how close it sits to real buyer behavior:
+1. First-party commercial data (sales notes, CRM, conversion rates, churn reasons)
+2. Observed market behavior (competitor ads, pricing pages, review volume, job posts)
+3. Search and demand proxies (keyword volume, CPC, autocomplete)
+4. Third-party reports (analyst, government, platform data)
+5. Expert opinion (founder interviews, practitioner posts)
+6. Weak proxies (uncited market-size claims, trend articles, AI summaries)
+
+### The presentation rule
+
+Never present a single precise market number without sources. Always show:
+- A **range**, not a point estimate
+- The **assumptions** behind it, listed separately from observed facts
+- The **method(s)** used and whether they agree
+- A **confidence label**
+- The **one assumption** that would most change the answer, and how to test it
+
+Bad: "The market is $4.27B."
+Good: "SAM is roughly $35M-$50M/year (medium confidence), based on bottom-up seat math and competitor revenue. The biggest swing factor is average seats per account; 10 customer calls would tighten it."
+
+## Market attractiveness scorecard
+
+Size alone doesn't make a market worth entering. Score each factor 1-5 and total out of 50.
+
+| Factor | 1 | 3 | 5 |
+|---|---|---|---|
+| Demand clarity | Pain is unclear | Pain exists, intent is mixed | Clear repeated buying or search behavior |
+| Budget availability | No clear payer | Payer exists, value uncertain | Clear budget owner and spend precedent |
+| Competitive weakness | Strong incumbents everywhere | Some gaps | Obvious gaps buyers care about |
+| Reachability | Hard to target | Reachable with work | Easy to reach through known channels |
+| Channel feasibility | Channels expensive or unclear | Some testable channels | Clear low-risk validation path |
+| Urgency | Nice-to-have | Periodic need | Triggered, painful, time-sensitive |
+| Proof availability | Hard to prove results | Some proof can be built | Strong proof is easy to show |
+| Execution risk | Heavy regulatory or operational risk | Manageable constraints | Low risk |
+| Speed to signal | Months to learn | 2-6 weeks | 7-14 days |
+| Strategic fit | Weak fit with team and assets | Partial fit | Strong fit |
+
+| Total | Read | Plan implication |
+|---|---|---|
+| 40-50 | Enter now | Plan around the full SOM range |
+| 30-39 | Enter narrowly | Pick one segment or wedge; size SOM for that wedge only |
+| 20-29 | Validate first | Make the first 90 days a validation sprint with kill criteria |
+| Below 20 | Avoid for now | Flag in Section 13 open decisions unless the team has a unique advantage |
+
+Use the scorecard alongside the problem size × frequency gate. A large SOM in the weak quadrant (small, infrequent problem) still constrains CAC and channel mix.
+
+## Where this feeds the plan
+
+- **Section 2 (Strategic frame)**: market definition, attractiveness score
+- **Section 8 (Revenue)** and **Section 10 (12-month outlook)**: SOM range as the ceiling for revenue targets
+- **Section 13 (Open decisions)**: low-confidence or unknown inputs, each with a validation task
+
+## Common mistakes
+
+- Treating TAM as proof of demand
+- Using a global report for a local-market decision
+- Reading search volume as market size
+- Presenting one method's output without a cross-check
+- Ignoring substitutes and the status quo (spreadsheets, agencies, doing nothing), which compete for the same budget