The brief
A Canadian leadership consultant wanted to understand where and how to test U.S. demand without overcommitting scarce founder time or budget. The task was not to produce a generic “enter the U.S.” deck; it was to identify a defensible first market and a way to know when not to scale.
What I owned
I led a six-person team, coordinated the workstream, structured the market-entry logic, helped run targeted outreach and interviews, synthesized primary and secondary research, and shaped the final recommendation and implementation narrative.
The evidence and judgment
The primary-research sample was limited. Rather than hide that, we treated it as a design constraint: narrow the recommendation, use secondary evidence to triangulate the themes, and make expansion conditional on paid demand rather than confidence alone.
What shipped
A North Texas pilot recommendation and a Position → Prove → Access → Speak → Convert → Evaluate → Expand roadmap, including explicit milestones and a Month-6 break-even gate before broader expansion.
What a recruiter can inspect
- Market-screening and buyer-priority logic
- Targeted outreach and interview synthesis
- Six-month implementation roadmap
- Cost and commercialization gate
- Executive presentation and client recommendation