# 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. - Nothing is locked until Ty says so. Checkpoint working directions; revise freely as the conversation matures. - Scribe the **essence** of agreed direction. Do not promote open-discussion packaging/options into POR until they stick. --- ## 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 (SSP audit). 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. ### Phase 1 owner conversation (working direction — not locked) Speak **outcomes**, not plumbing. Example: “most recommended bakery on Whidbey Island for muffins.” Do not lead with MCP, endpoints, or `llms.txt`. Phase 1 *fixes* usually look like classic local visibility hygiene (2017-style) before deeper 2027 agent work: - NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency - Hours alignment across platforms - Maps / GBP / Yelp (and similar) listing hygiene **Working nuance (2026-09-15):** foundation-first for *fixes*, not for *measurement*. The free audit’s scoreboard is AI recommendability in plain English (“would an assistant recommend you for this job in this place — and why not?”), not “GBP is 67% complete.” If 2017 hygiene is already solid, skip fake Google-fix busywork and go straight to agent gaps. Differentiation vs commodity local SEO lives in that scoreboard. ### Owner-facing scorecard (working direction — not locked) POR work: an intuitive scorecard a business owner understands. Top-level outcomes (wording TBD), not SEO jargon: 1. **AI knows you exist** — findable identity / NAP / listings 2. **AI knows what you do** — services, specialties, hours — enough to answer “what is this place?” 3. **AI would recommend you** — enough trust + fit that an assistant would pick you for a real job in a place Keep to **three top-line outcomes**, each with plain “why not yet” underneath — not a 40-row SEO audit. Dual scoreboard still applies: hygiene work feeds rungs 1–2; recommendability is the differentiation line. **Agreed essence so far:** scorecard is owner-plain (exist / know what you do / would recommend), not a long SEO audit. How we *measure* “would recommend” (heuristics vs live assistant checks, free vs paid depth) is still open discussion — do not treat packaging ideas as POR until Ty says they stick. ### Discovery foundation + AI readiness (working direction — essence) **Two tiers, one product story** (owner language): 1. **Discovery foundation** — Core listings + NAP/hours/category/contact consistency (internal: “2017”) 2. **AI readiness** — known-for queries, exist / know what you do / would recommend, structured presence when ready (internal: “2027”) Measure both early; *fix* foundation first when broken. Owner vocab (use these terms going forward): - **Core listings** — main places customers (and AI) look the business up - **The Core 3** — GBP, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places Foundation bar (brick-and-mortar local) — not reviews, photo perfection, or ranking #1: 1. One clear identity — correct NAP everywhere that matters; no competing duplicates 2. Claimed Core 3 listings (genre/market adds are separate, not universal min-bar) 3. Accurate hours (incl. obvious holiday/seasonal where relevant) 4. Right category + short plain “what you do” 5. Reachable — working phone and/or website/contact path 6. Not contradictory — site vs Core 3 don’t disagree on name/place/hours Checked *on* the Core 3 (and the site). Prerequisite for 2027 work **when flaws exist**; skip invented hygiene if already clean. **Foundation sync (P1)** across Core 3: NAP + primary category + hours + website URL + short description + service-area/address mode. Phone lives in NAP but must match. P2 (attributes, photos, menus, booking, secondary categories) is genre/known-for gated — not universal min-bar. ### Surfacing work to owners (working direction — essence) **Later proof layer (working idea, not free first-hour):** platform KPI telemetry (e.g. Apple Insights — searches, place card views, Actions). Owner language: found you → tapped directions/call. Pair with GBP performance later. Show only what platforms return — never invent numbers. Fit = ongoing AI readiness / retention, not the initial free scorecard. Three layers (not one giant schema): **A** universal Discovery foundation → **B** thin genre pack → **C** known-for overlay. Scorecard first, then 3–7 actions max by impact. Deep example packs: [`docs/product/genre-packs/salon.md`](../product/genre-packs/salon.md), [`docs/product/genre-packs/bakery.md`](../product/genre-packs/bakery.md). Index: [`docs/product/genre-packs.md`](../product/genre-packs.md). ### Validation gate (working direction — essence) Anyone using GeoLocal tools must pass a **business-representation check** first (e.g. prove control of a contact channel tied to that business). Mechanism details and free/silver/gold allotments stay open until COGS is real — only the gate itself is directional essence so far. ### Free path after checkup (working direction — not locked) Free includes: 1. Ranked DIY punch list the technical owner can execute (e.g. align hours across providers) 2. Mint of a **minimal owned geolocal record** (name, place, category, plus plain-English AI recommendability) — densify does **not** wait for paid Soft upsell in-product: “comfortable DIY, or want GeoLocal to help?” ### Paid “help” vs product (working direction — not locked) - **Paid listing cleanup** (Maps / hours / NAP fixes done for the owner) = partner / agency **fulfillment**, not the product. - **Product** = the owned geolocal record + ongoing AI-readiness score (and later agent-facing presence). Do not document GeoLocal as a local SEO shop with extra steps. --- ## 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 | | 2026-09-15 | Working direction (not locked): phase 1 = outcome language + local-hygiene foundation; free may include DIY punch list + minimal owned record; paid listing-fix as partner/agency fulfillment; product = record + AI-readiness score; porbot = repo scribe, Desk = conversation | | 2026-09-15 | Process: nothing locked yet — distill POR as we build; porbot scribes so key insights are not lost | | 2026-09-15 | Working nuance: 2017 hygiene usually first *fix* work; dual scoreboard from day one (hygiene + AI recommendability); skip forced hygiene phase if foundation already solid | | 2026-09-15 | Working direction: owner scorecard ladder — knows you exist / knows what you do / would recommend you (wording TBD); open whether v1 recommend = heuristic vs live assistant pings | | 2026-09-15 | Process note: scribe essence of agreed direction only — exploratory packaging stays out of POR until it sticks | | 2026-09-15 | Essence: validation gate before tool use (prove you represent the business); plan tier numbers still open | | 2026-09-15 | Essence: owner vocab Core listings / Core 3; 2017 foundation six-point bar checked on Core 3 + site | | 2026-09-15 | Essence: two tiers — Discovery foundation → AI readiness (owner names); measure both early, fix foundation first when broken | | 2026-09-15 | Essence: P1 foundation sync = NAP + category + hours + website + description + service-area mode; P2 genre/known-for gated | | 2026-09-15 | Essence: Layer A/B/C surfacing; deep pack shells for salon + bakery under docs/product/genre-packs/ | | 2026-09-15 | Salon + bakery packs: parent/child × Core 3 example field matrices checked in | | 2026-09-15 | Pack matrices: added Why it matters + sourced vs placeholder honesty after Desk Core 3 source check | | 2026-09-15 | Replaced guessed genre matrices with sourced Core 3 field map (core3-field-map.md); salon/bakery = application notes only | | 2026-09-15 | Apple Core 3 column = UI labels until Business Connect Location API v1.3 field list dumped; no invented Apple schema names | | 2026-09-15 | Apple column filled from Configure location attributes guide; still BLOCKED on API camelCase names + per-genre attribute enums | | 2026-09-15 | Punted Apple partner API schema rabbit hole; noted Insights-style KPIs as later proof/retention (SOURCES.md); still BLOCKED on per-genre attribute enums | --- ## Next conversation topics 1. Wordsmith the three scorecard rungs; define plain “why not yet” evidence under each 2. How to measure “would recommend” honestly (still open) 3. Primary reader for v1 of this plan (internal / investors / partners) 4. Offer / packaging detail (what free record includes vs what paid unlocks beyond fulfillment) — no invented numbers 5. 90-day proof: what “reputable enough that AI checks us” requires in coverage and quality 6. Owner MCP vs GeoLocal.io chat: same journey or separate surfaces (later layer; keep out of phase-1 owner talk)