The Methodology
SeanPropApp v1.7.5
A structured analysis refined over 25 years of PE, product, and technology leadership. 18 modules across three phases, each building on the previous.SeanPropApp threads your initiative, product idea, strategic hypothesis, or deal thesis through each module to stress-test the opportunity from market context through business-model viability.
Auto-Run completes all 18 modules in about 20 minutes with no user input required. Guided mode pauses after each module for review and refinement, typically taking about 60 minutes. Guided produces the best results when the user has insider knowledge to debate and course-correct the Foundation modules from the start.
The methodology began in B2B SaaS and enterprise software and is now expanding to support broader business models including B2C, marketplaces, and hybrid digital-physical propositions.
Phase 1
Foundation
Modules 1-4 · Understand the landscape before you build anything
Who are you building for? What jobs do they need done? Who else is trying to solve this? These four modules replace the first phase of a consulting engagement: the research where you gather context, map competitors, and define your target customer.
Value: Stop building for imaginary demand. Understand the target customer, user, stakeholder, or participant ecosystem, their switching triggers, and your competitive gaps before you write code, launch operations, or commit capital.
Company Context
Parses your company, initiative, and scope. Identifies competitors from public sources. Tests initial assumptions about market position. Sets the frame for every module that follows.
Ideal Customer Profile
Defines the target customer, user, buyer, operator, partner, or participant groups that matter most. Surfaces who drives adoption, conversion, retention, or expansion depending on the business model. Includes emerging agentic and programmatic personas.
Jobs To Be Done
Maps the functional, emotional, and social needs that target customers, users, or participants are trying to solve. Identifies current workarounds and switching triggers. Reveals whether the need is strong enough to drive adoption, switching, or willingness to pay.
Competitive Landscape
Benchmarks direct competitors, substitutes, adjacent entrants, and ecosystem incumbents. Assesses relevant DIY, partner, channel, and operational replication risks on a 1-3 year horizon. Identifies your competitive position and underserved beachhead.
Phase 2
Proposition
Modules 5-11 · Turn research into something you can pitch
The proposition phase transforms Foundation research into artifacts you can share with boards, investors, and teams. It builds progressively: executive summary, then elevator pitches, then customer quotes that capture what success looks like from each persona's perspective.
The culmination is the future press release: an Amazon Working Backwards artifact written as if the initiative already succeeded, two years from now. It forces clarity about what you are actually promising and to whom. It is designed to be shared in board meetings and leadership reviews to frame the strategic debate: is this future compelling enough to fund?
Value: Walk into any meeting with a coherent story. The press release alone forces the kind of clarity that most teams never achieve without weeks of iteration.
Executive Summary
A living synthesis updated as modules complete. Covers proposition strengths, key weaknesses, immediate gaps, strategic moat trajectory, and the single riskiest hypothesis. Designed to be read first by time-constrained executives.
Positioning Statement
Synthesizes all foundation research into a clear positioning statement plus a 10x bolder version for stretch thinking. Includes a critique of both, a "what we are NOT" declaration, and a tangible value question.
Elevator Pitches
Two targeted pitches: one for the relevant external audience (customers, users, partners, or market participants), and one for leadership, board, or investors. Each under 100 words. Includes the #1 likely objection and a prepared rebuttal.
Stakeholder Quotes
Illustrative quotes from the most important stakeholder perspectives, showing what success would sound like if the proposition solved a meaningful need. Rated for strength. The top 3 flow directly into the future press release.
Future Press ReleaseCenterpiece artifact
The centerpiece of the analysis. An Amazon Working Backwards press release set 2 years in the future, written as if the initiative already succeeded. Three stakeholder quotes, an external FAQ, and an internal FAQ using the IDEO Desirability/Feasibility/Viability framework. This artifact is designed to be shared with leadership teams to frame the strategic debate: is this future compelling enough to fund?
Discovery & Validation Plan
Structured around the riskiest assumptions: demand, behavior change, willingness to pay, willingness to switch, supply-side formation where relevant, operational feasibility, and economic viability. Includes success criteria, timelines, and an interview script. Grounded in the principle: Nothing Important Happens In The Office.
Gap Analysis
Maps the gap between the press release vision and current reality. Defines the Minimum Sellable Product. Categorizes features as non-negotiable, deferrable, or gray zone. Sizes effort and risk for each critical gap.
Phase 3
Strategic Depth
Modules 12-16 · Stress-test the business model
Strategic Depth is where the hard questions live. These modules stress-test whether the opportunity justifies the investment. They examine the gap between the future vision and current reality, where value is shifting in the stack, what the moat really is, how the economics work, and which unanswered questions matter most.
Value: Kill bad ideas before they consume capital. Surface the assumptions that will make or break you. For investors, this is the diligence that separates signal from noise.
Value Stack
Positions the proposition within the value stack. Assesses what becomes cheaper, what becomes more valuable, and where defensibility may migrate. Evaluates substitutes, internal alternatives, and DIY risk where relevant. Applies Jevons Paradox on a 1-3 year horizon.
Moat Deep Dive
Scores competitive defensibility across Hamilton Helmer's 7 Powers: Scale Economics, Network Effects, Counter-Positioning, Switching Costs, Branding, Cornered Resource, and Process Power. Includes 3-year trend projections and a DIY/agentic risk table. Surfaces the riskiest assumptions about long-term defensibility.
Unit Economics
Quantifies value creation, cost to serve, monetization logic, and scaling economics. Three scenarios (conservative, base, optimistic) with revenue projections. Supports subscription, transaction, marketplace, services, and hybrid business models. Highlights the validation questions that must be answered before committing.
Top Questions & Action Plan
The five most critical unanswered questions and five concrete action items for the next 30 days. Framed for the most important stakeholder groups so they know what matters to them. This is the "so what, now what" module.
Five Additional Ideas
Five strategic initiatives ranked by risk-adjusted impact. Each with thesis, target audience, business model, moat potential, complexity, and strategic value assessment. Designed to expand thinking beyond the primary hypothesis.
What You Walk Away With
Complete Analysis Package
All 18 modules in a single, professionally formatted document. Export as HTML (for sharing links), DOCX (for leadership reviews, board materials, and investor memos), or ZIP (complete package with all assets).
Individual Module Outputs
Each module produces a standalone section you can excerpt for presentations, memos, or business cases. The executive summary, elevator pitches, and press release are each designed to be shared independently.
Google Drive Sync
Automatically save analyses to your Drive with an organized folder structure: inputs, analysis outputs, exports, and archives. Access from any device. Previous versions preserved when you re-run modules.
Guided Discussion
In guided mode, the AI asks probing questions and you refine answers together. The conversation itself becomes a valuable record of strategic thinking: the reasoning behind the numbers, the debates that shaped the positioning, the assumptions you chose to challenge.
How It Is Built
SeanPropApp is a Next.js application with a client-first architecture. The full Proposition Prompt methodology is embedded in the client bundle and executes against your chosen AI provider (Anthropic Claude or OpenAI GPT-4) using your own API key. The server acts as a thin CORS proxy: it relays requests to the AI provider without storing, logging, or reading any content.
Authentication and session management run on Supabase. Optional Google Drive sync stores analysis outputs in your own Drive account. All analysis data lives in your browser's IndexedDB by default, with cloud storage as an opt-in addition.
Development is powered by Claude Code CLI with gstack skills for QA testing, code review, and shipping workflows, plus Agent Teams for parallel development across features. The methodology itself is version-controlled and tested across hundreds of real analyses to ensure consistent, high-quality output.
Free During Beta
SeanPropApp is free to use while in beta. You supply your own AI API key (Anthropic or OpenAI) and pay only for your token usage, typically $0.25 to $2 per full analysis depending on model tier.
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