Stage 1: Baseline Fact Gathering — Building Your Intelligence Foundation
Stage 1: Baseline Fact Gathering — Building Your Intelligence Foundation
For early-stage software CEOs, winning starts with clarity. This stage establishes your competitive intelligence foundation—reliable, repeatable, and ready for growth.
Why Baseline Facts Matter
At the earliest stage of growth, most startups operate on assumption—what competitors offer, how they price, or where they’re winning. Baseline Fact Gathering replaces guesswork with verified intelligence. This foundation anchors every future strategy: from messaging and pricing to fundraising and product roadmap decisions.
- Build a verifiable snapshot of your top 10 competitors
- Track funding, headcount, product changes, and web traction
- Detect pricing, hiring, and messaging shifts early
What’s Included in Stage 1
- Competitive Data Dashboard: Funding, traffic, and product signals for top 10 competitors, refreshed monthly.
- AI-Driven Pattern Detection: Automatically identifies growth surges, funding spikes, and messaging pivots.
- Market Map Visualization: Clear positioning of every key player across value chain and vertical.
- Founder’s Brief: Concise summary of early-stage competitive gaps and opportunities.
Your Deliverables
- Interactive dashboard (Notion, Sheets, or Airtable)
- 10-competitor comparison PDF brief
- Strategic opportunity map
- Next-step recommendations for Stage 2 (Strategic Positioning)
Each engagement produces actionable intelligence, not just data. You’ll know which competitors are scaling fastest, who’s hiring key GTM roles, and where product narratives are shifting—so you can act, not react.
Ideal for Early-Stage SaaS CEOs
Founders at the pre-seed or seed stage use Baseline Fact Gathering to create investor-grade market clarity. It’s designed for leaders who need to make confident, data-backed choices about focus, differentiation, and growth.
About John C. Mecke
30+ years in enterprise software strategy and GTM. Managing Director at DevelopmentCorporate.com. Helps founders turn data into investor-ready insights and sales enablement systems.
- Advisor to pre-seed and seed SaaS CEOs
- Competitive and product strategy expert
- Clients across U.S., U.K., and MENA
Contact
Book a call or email john@developmentcorporate.com.