Research
Evidence decides what we build.
Research is not a phase the group passes through on the way to building. It is the mechanism that determines which ventures exist at all, and it continues after a product is live.
Methodology
How we investigate a problem.
Problem discovery
We look for problems that show up repeatedly in real operations, not in commentary about an industry.
User research
Interviews with the people doing the work, on the terms of their own workflow rather than our product idea.
Workflow mapping
We document how work actually moves — including the workarounds — before proposing to change it.
Survey design
Structured instruments where we need breadth rather than depth, designed to avoid leading answers.
Market research
Sizing, structure and behaviour of the market a venture would enter.
Competitive analysis
What already exists, where it succeeds, and why it has not resolved the problem.
Product validation
Testing whether the proposed system changes outcomes for a real team.
Prototyping
Building the smallest thing that can be judged honestly.
Iteration
Revising against evidence, and stopping ventures that do not earn the next stage.
Discipline
What research protects against.
It protects against building for an imagined user, against confusing a preference for a problem, and against carrying an idea further than its evidence justifies.
Applied in practice
ShootSlate emerged from direct observation of production workflows and interviews with the people coordinating them — not from a market thesis about media software. That sequence is the group's default.