You can’t position or promote a product you don’t fully understand. That’s where market research comes in – not as a one-off task, but as the base layer of your entire go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

Effective research isn’t about bloated slide decks or endless surveys. It’s about learning just enough to:

• Define your ideal customer profile (ICP)
• Understand your user’s actual workflows and pains
• Learn what’s already out there – and how you’re different

Table of contents

1. Use this research template to move faster
2. Define your ICP with clarity
3. Map jobs-to-be-done, not demographics
4. Analyze your competitors with intent
5. Spot market gaps that actually matter
6. Sidebar: Key takeaways

Use this research template to move faster

Instead of starting from scratch, use the same GTM research format I used for Taskly.

📎 Download the GTM Research Template (PDF)
Includes: ICP worksheet, JTBD mapping table, competitor scan grid, and market gap prompts.

Define your ICP with clarity

Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) should answer two questions:

1. Who gets the most value from your product?
2. Who is most likely to buy it?

For Taskly, that was team leads and operations managers in fast-moving tech companies – people overwhelmed by task management tools that created more work than they solved.

Your ICP should include:

• Company size and industry
• Team roles and decision-makers
• Key challenges and desired outcomes

✅ Tip: Start narrow. You can always expand later, but vague ICPs waste time and budget.

Map jobs-to-be-done, not demographics

Instead of focusing on titles or ages, map the jobs your customer is trying to get done. This is the core of Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) theory.

For Taskly, it looked like this:

• “I want to automate recurring team tasks without using Zapier or coding.”
• “I need one tool to organize what my team is doing across Slack, email, and meetings.”
• “I want to reduce the number of follow-ups I send manually.”

When you know the job, you can position your product as the best tool for it.

Analyze your competitors with intent

Competitor research isn’t about copying. It’s about identifying:

• Feature gaps
• Pricing patterns
• Positioning blind spots

Look at how other products describe themselves, how they price, and what users complain about in reviews. Then answer:

• What do they do well?
• What do they ignore?
• Where can we differentiate?

✅ Example: Taskly avoids complex workflows and integrations. That’s how it stands out against tools like Asana and ClickUp.

Spot market gaps that actually matter

Market gaps aren’t just “missing features.” They’re under-served needs.

Use what you’ve learned about your ICP and competitors to spot:

• Workarounds users are creating themselves
• Complaints repeated across platforms
• Features that are overbuilt or underused

These are signals. Use them to validate your angle and test early messaging.

Sidebar: Key takeaways

• A strong GTM strategy starts with clear, focused research
• Build your ICP around needs, not vague personas
• Competitor analysis should reveal gaps, not fuel imitation
• Jobs-to-be-done frameworks help with real-world positioning
• Use a repeatable format to keep research tight and actionable

Need a second set of eyes on your GTM research – or support putting it into action? Drop me a message.