Market research synthesis

Market Research Synthesis

Produce a decision-ready synthesis whose claims can be traced to current sources. The artifact is not a competitor scrapbook or a collection of unsupported market opinions.

Workflow

1. Define the decision, research question, target user/buyer, category, geography, time window, product form, and evidence that could change the decision.
2. Read references/research-synthesis-method.md. Create the source ledger before collecting conclusions. When the decision is product positioning, also read references/positioning-decision.md and bind every positioning component to that ledger.
3. Select leaders, challengers, niche winners, substitutes, and relevant failed or low-trust examples. Explain why each belongs in the comparison.
4. Prefer primary surfaces and independently corroborate material claims where possible. Record direct observation, attributed user report, inference, and judgment as different evidence classes.
5. Search deliberately for counterevidence: contradictory cohorts, failed entrants, different geographies or plans, switching costs, selection bias, and facts that weaken the preferred story.
6. Compare promises, users, first value, pricing/package, workflow, distribution, complaints, trust gaps, and defensibility at the same scope and date.
7. Separate table stakes, copied conventions, genuine differentiators, and unresolved assumptions. Link every recommendation to supporting and contradicting ledger entries.
8. Deliver an original wedge, product or positioning choices, risks, confidence, and the smallest next validation that could overturn the recommendation.

Source verification

• Record URL or source identifier, publisher, access date, geography, plan, currency, evidence class, direct excerpt or observation, and confidence.
• Triangulate consequential claims with a primary source plus an independent source when available; say when only one source exists.
• Preserve conflicts instead of averaging them away.
• If source access is unavailable, return a research plan and mark market claims unverified rather than filling gaps from memory.

When not to use

• Use evidence-synthesis for a reproducible cross-domain systematic, rapid, scoping, or structured evidence review whose artifact is not a market recommendation.
• Use source-to-skill-distiller when one bounded document or corpus must become a reusable procedure.
• Use saas-subscription-pricing when current market evidence already exists and the primary artifact is the actual package and price decision.
• Do not use for a routine implementation plan or a repository of raw research notes with no current decision.

Guardrails

• Do not copy competitor wording, screenshots, proprietary workflows, or other protected expression into the recommendation.
• Do not treat marketing claims, scraped reviews, community anecdotes, or search rank as equivalent to verified behavior or demand.
• Do not count multiple pages repeating one claim as independent corroboration.
• Do not hide negative evidence, source conflicts, weak coverage, or uncertainty.
• Do not recommend dark patterns merely because competitors use them.

Output format

Decision and scope:

Source ledger:

Claim	Source	Accessed	Market/plan	Evidence class	Supports/contradicts	Confidence

Competitor and substitute comparison:

Table stakes, conventions, and differentiation:

Counterevidence and unresolved conflicts:

Recommendation, risks, confidence, and disconfirming test:

Positioning decision when requested:

• segment/job, alternative, category, differentiator/outcome, proof, fit boundary
• positioning statement, message hierarchy, objections and channel handoff