PulseIQ is a B2B market intelligence SaaS company serving mid-market software vendors with dashboards on competitor activity, pricing changes, hiring signals, and customer sentiment. The company has $18M ARR, is growing 22% year over year, and serves 420 customers with an average contract value of $43K. PulseIQ's product is well-rated for data quality, but customer feedback shows that insights often arrive too late to shape strategic decisions. The CEO is considering whether to invest in a formal "industry trends engine"—a repeatable capability combining external data sources, analyst workflows, and productized alerts—to improve retention and create a premium upsell.
You are the Head of Strategy. The executive team wants a recommendation on how PulseIQ should stay updated on industry trends in a way that creates customer value and competitive advantage, not just internal awareness. The decision matters now because two competitors have recently launched trend-monitoring features, and PulseIQ's enterprise customers are asking for more forward-looking insights. You need to determine whether PulseIQ should build this capability, what sources and operating model it should use, and how it should go to market.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Current ARR | $18M |
| Gross margin | 78% |
| Net revenue retention | 104% |
| Logo retention | 88% |
| Customers requesting trend alerts in last 2 quarters | 31% |
| Estimated build cost for trends engine | $2.4M over 12 months |
| Potential premium add-on price | $12K per customer per year |
| Estimated attach rate after 18 months | 20-30% of customer base |