Checkpoint working business plan on planning-rev2

Capture mid-stream decisions (north star intent, owner-first buyer, agent-mediated discovery path, free checkup flywheel) so conversation progress is durable on the branch.
2026-09-15 16:21:57 +00:00
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+# geolocal.io — Business Plan (working draft)
+
+**Branch:** `planning-rev2`  
+**Status:** In progress — conversation checkpoint, not final  
+**Purpose:** One durable place for the clean plan. Existing docs on `main` are raw material; this file is what we iterate.
+
+**How we work this file**
+- Checkpoint here after every few solid decisions (or when a phrase must not be lost).
+- Prefer revising this over spawning parallel strategy docs.
+- Mark unknowns as open questions. Do not invent market numbers here.
+
+---
+
+## 1. North star (wording still open)
+
+**Intent (stable):** Enable local businesses to be discovered and recommended by AI assistants.
+
+Still wordsmithing the exact sentence. The job does not change while the phrasing does.
+
+---
+
+## 2. What the company is
+
+Infrastructure — not a consumer destination.
+
+- Host structured business truth so AI assistants can discover, understand, and recommend local businesses (services and local retail with real-world presence).
+- Give the business a simple way to point at that truth (no servers for them to run).
+- Orchestrate booking / payment / related partners where needed; do not rebuild Calendly or Shopify.
+- Stay invisible to end consumers; win by being useful to agents and trustworthy to owners.
+
+**Not:** another Yelp/Google for human browsing attention.
+
+---
+
+## 3. Who we serve
+
+**Primary customer:** the business owner.
+
+By extension:
+- Someone in their organization acting for them
+- A partner they already trust (agency, SEO, chamber, tourism board)
+
+Partners are a **path to the owner**, not a different product.
+
+---
+
+## 4. How demand shows up (two moments)
+
+1. **Presence for other AIs** — When a consumer’s assistant asks for a local plumber / salon / store, structured geolocal data can be consulted and acted on.
+2. **Owner (or their AI) asks for help** — Emerging path: “How do we help our business be discovered by AI?” Geolocal should invest in scenarios where the owner’s own AI can diagnose and set that up — not only human sales through agencies.
+
+Same north star; different moments of truth.
+
+---
+
+## 5. Wedge and flywheel (direction agreed)
+
+**Preferred wedge:** a free AI-visibility checkup.
+
+Why:
+- Shows immediate value / need
+- Builds critical mass
+- Small free actions amplify adoption
+
+**Long-term reputation bet:** become so useful and dense that AI systems default to checking geolocal for local-class queries — analogous to how they lean on Yelp or Foursquare today.
+
+**Strategic read (not pricing gimmick):** free usefulness → coverage → agent trust → more local queries resolved via geolocal → more owners want in → denser graph.
+
+### Open — first free win after checkup
+
+Unresolved on purpose (checkpoint before answering):
+
+- **A.** Free checkup *plus* a small durable win (e.g. basic presence live, structured hours, minimal genre pack)
+- **B.** Diagnosis only, with a clear line on what paid unlocks
+
+Lean toward **A** if the goal is critical mass and “AI knows to check geolocal,” because empty scores do not densify the graph. Final call: Ty.
+
+---
+
+## 6. Business plan audience (still open)
+
+Clarify what this document must optimize for first:
+- Internal clarity (founders / operators)
+- Investors
+- Partners / channels
+
+Can serve more than one later; pick the primary reader for v1 structure.
+
+---
+
+## 7. Source material (do not duplicate blindly)
+
+Treat as inputs, not competing sources of truth while this draft is live:
+
+- `NORTH_STAR.md`
+- `docs/strategy/CANONICAL_STRATEGY.md`
+- `docs/gtm/`, `docs/investors/`, `docs/product/`
+- `docs/archive/` — historical only
+
+If something here conflicts with `CANONICAL_STRATEGY.md`, resolve on purpose in a later pass — do not silently fork forever.
+
+---
+
+## 8. Checkpoint log
+
+| When | What landed |
+| :--- | :--- |
+| 2026-09-15 | North star intent; owner-first buyer; partners as extension; agent-mediated “get discovered” path; free checkup wedge; reputation / critical-mass flywheel; open question on free durable win vs diagnosis-only |
+
+---
+
+## Next conversation topics
+
+1. Decide free win after checkup (A vs B above)
+2. Primary reader for v1 of this plan
+3. Offer / packaging (free vs paid) without inventing numbers
+4. 90-day proof: what “reputable enough that AI checks us” requires in coverage and quality
@@ -2,11 +2,12 @@

 | Doc | Role |
 |-----|------|
-| **[CANONICAL_STRATEGY.md](./CANONICAL_STRATEGY.md)** | Final-draft operating strategy — team plans, builds, and sells against this |
+| **[BUSINESS_PLAN.md](./BUSINESS_PLAN.md)** | Working business plan on `planning-rev2` — iterate here; checkpoint conversation decisions |
+| **[CANONICAL_STRATEGY.md](./CANONICAL_STRATEGY.md)** | Prior operating strategy draft — raw material until the business plan supersedes or merges it |

 ## Companion product specs

 - [Product overview](../product/overview.md)  
 - [Use cases](../product/use-cases/)  

-If another doc conflicts with the canonical strategy, update that doc or deliberately revise the strategy. Do not leave both live.
+If another doc conflicts with the active plan on this branch, update that doc or deliberately revise the plan. Do not leave both live as competing truth.