Company Context

PulseNote is a seed-stage B2B SaaS startup building an AI workspace for customer success teams. The founder claims the product can eventually serve the broader CRM and revenue operations market, but today the company has only 18 paying customers and limited proof that it has a durable entry point.

Problem

You are meeting the founder to determine whether PulseNote has a real wedge into a large market, or whether it is just a narrow feature with weak expansion potential. Early usage data is mixed: 70% of active accounts use one workflow weekly, but only 25% of accounts have expanded usage beyond the original team. The founder argues that strong enthusiasm from a small set of design partners is evidence of product-market fit.

Your task is not to build a full market-sizing model. Instead, focus on the questions, evidence, and reasoning you would use to assess whether the startup has identified a painful enough initial use case, a differentiated advantage, and a credible path from niche adoption to a much larger market.

Deliverables

1. Identify the most important questions you would ask the founder to test whether the product has a true market wedge.
2. Explain how you would evaluate the initial target user, their core job to be done, and the severity/frequency of the pain point.
3. Describe what evidence would convince you that the wedge is expandable into a large market rather than trapped in a small niche.
4. Define the success metrics or signals you would look for at this stage.
5. Discuss the key trade-offs and risks in pursuing a narrow wedge versus broadening too early.

Constraints

• You have a 30-minute founder meeting and limited access to raw customer data.
• The company has fewer than 10 employees and 9 months of runway.
• You should assume the founder may overstate TAM and customer enthusiasm.
• Any recommendation should prioritize speed of learning over heavy analysis or long research cycles.