# SETTLED - The product is a B2B analytics dashboard for e-commerce stores, and the build is ~70% complete — the core product direction is not up for debate, only the remaining 30% scope. - Shopify is the first (and, at launch, only stated) integration. - The success bar is 50 paying customers within the first quarter after launch. This is the number every other decision must serve. - Runway is 8 months — a hard clock. Launch plus a full Q1 measurement window has to fit inside it with margin. - Team is fixed for now: 2 full-stack engineers, founder as sole salesperson, one part-time content marketer, one AI agent scoped to integrations. No mention of budget to hire, so *assume* headcount stays flat (flag: low-confidence assumption). Not settled, and deliberately kept out of here: the target segment. The context only says competitors ignore small stores — it does *not* confirm the team has committed to small stores. That's a frontier, below. # DECISION FRONTIERS - **Target segment.** Options: broad "any Shopify store," small stores only, or a sharp niche (e.g. stores in a GMV band, or a vertical like fashion/DTC). Rides on: messaging, which stores the founder prospects, what the dashboard needs to show, and whether 50 sales in a quarter is even reachable. The competitor gap points toward small stores, but "small" spans a hobbyist doing $2k/mo to a store doing $2M/yr — those are different products. - **Pricing model and point.** Options: flat monthly, tiered by store size/orders, usage-based, freemium, or free-trial-to-paid. Rides on: unit economics against 8-month runway, whether the motion is self-serve or founder-sold, and the raw funnel math to reach 50. - **Go-to-market motion.** Options: founder-led outbound sales, self-serve via the Shopify App Store, or content-driven inbound. The team shape (one seller + one part-time marketer) makes this a forcing choice — 50 hand-sold deals in a quarter is a very different week than 50 self-serve signups. - **Launch scope (the remaining 30%).** Options: ship a thin but complete slice now, or hold for a fuller feature set. Rides on: launch date, which starts the Q1 clock everything is measured against. - **Shopify-only vs. broader at launch.** Staying Shopify-only keeps eng focused; it also caps the addressable pool. A frontier only if the funnel math shows Shopify alone can't supply 50. # FOG Ranked by how much a different answer bends the plan. 1. **Will small Shopify stores actually pay, and how much?** If willingness-to-pay is low or thin, the whole model breaks — pricing, the self-serve-vs-sold motion, and the reachability of 50 all shift at once. Highest-leverage unknown. 2. **What will the legal review require?** This is a binary blocker. If data-handling review surfaces GDPR/data-processor obligations or a consent problem, it can delay launch, force architecture changes, or restrict what data the dashboard can even use. Unknown severity, external timeline. 3. **Does the funnel math close?** To net 50 paying in ~13 weeks with one seller and a part-time marketer, what top-of-funnel volume and conversion rate is required — and is that volume even available? If the arithmetic doesn't close, the target, segment, or motion must change. 4. **Is distribution going through the Shopify App Store, and on what terms?** App Store listing may impose a review/approval timeline and a revenue share, which reshapes both launch date and pricing. Different answer moves the launch date and the margin. 5. **When does the launch clock actually start?** "Q1 after launch" is undated. The remaining 30% plus legal could push launch weeks out, eating runway. A slip here compresses everything downstream. 6. **50 acquired vs. 50 retained.** If early churn is high, "50 paying" at quarter-end requires selling well past 50. Unknown until real customers use it, but it changes how aggressive acquisition must be. # BEST NEXT MOVE 1. **WTP:** Founder runs 6–8 problem/price interviews with small Shopify store owners this week, ending each with a concrete price reaction (or a fake-door "pre-order at $X" test). Fastest because it turns opinion into a signal from the exact buyers who must convert. 2. **Legal:** Kick off the external review immediately as a delegated task — it has the longest lead time and isn't something the team can shortcut internally, so starting the clock today is the only way to de-risk the launch date. 3. **Funnel math:** Founder builds a one-page reverse model (50 ÷ close rate ÷ show-up rate = leads needed), then sanity-checks the top number against real reachable channels. A spreadsheet, not a project — it exposes an impossible target in an hour. 4. **App Store terms:** Read Shopify's App Store review requirements and fee schedule directly, or ask a founder who's shipped one. A day of research, not a build — the terms are documented and knowable without guessing. 5. **Launch date:** Engineers scope the remaining 30% into a "must-ship" vs "can-defer" cut line and commit a date. Fastest because the two people who know the codebase can answer it definitively. 6. **Churn:** Can't be resolved pre-launch — instrument retention/activation events into the build now so the answer arrives the moment real usage starts. The move is to make it *measurable*, not to predict it. # PARALLEL PLAN Four tracks, designed to run with minimal cross-dependence. - **Track 1 — Build to launch.** Owner: both full-stack engineers + AI agent (agent on Shopify integration hardening). First deliverable: a committed launch cut line and date for the remaining 30%. Unblocks: the start of the Q1 clock, which every metric depends on. - **Track 2 — Pricing & demand validation.** Owner: founder. First deliverable: 6–8 WTP interviews plus the reverse funnel model, yielding a pricing hypothesis and a go/no-go on the 50 target as stated. Unblocks: the pricing decision, the GTM motion, and the segment choice. - **Track 3 — Legal clearance.** Owner: founder as delegator → external counsel. First deliverable: a data-handling requirements list (what must change, what's fine). Unblocks: launch go/no-go and any architecture constraints. Runs externally so it doesn't consume engineering time. - **Track 4 — Positioning & pipeline.** Owner: part-time content marketer. First deliverable: a positioning statement + landing page with a waitlist/early-access capture, framed around the small-store gap. Unblocks: launch-day pipeline and a live test of message-market fit. Can proceed with a placeholder price, so it doesn't wait on Track 2. Overlap note: the landing page (T4) will eventually want the real price (T2), but it can launch on "early access — pricing soon" and stay fully parallel until then. # TODAY 1. **Kick off the external legal review.** Unlock: removes the single biggest binary blocker to launch — the one thing with a lead time you can't compress by working harder. 2. **Have engineers draw the launch cut line and put a date on it.** Unlock: starts the Q1 clock and lets every other track plan against a real deadline instead of a floating one. 3. **Founder books 6–8 small-store WTP calls and drafts the reverse funnel model.** Unlock: pressure-tests whether "50 paying in a quarter" is arithmetic or fantasy, and feeds the pricing and segment decisions the whole plan rests on. The single input that would sharpen this map most: **a confirmed target segment definition** — "small stores" is currently a gap the competitors left, not a decision the team has made, and nailing it down collapses uncertainty across pricing, funnel math, and messaging at once.