A clear plan for your business, backed by market data.
This intake takes about 20 minutes. Honest answers in, sharp analysis out. The form runs locally in your browser and auto-saves between pages, so you can step away and come back.
[ 🎤 ] PRO TIP — DICTATE YOUR ANSWERS
Wispr Flow is a free dictation tool that turns your voice into text in any input field. Operators who dictate typically produce 3–4× more detail than typing alone, and the depth of your answers directly determines the sharpness of your report.
How you'd like to be addressed on your report. First name is fine.
Used once, to send you your report. No newsletter. No follow-up sequence.
If you have one. Forge scrapes the homepage and About page for context that fills gaps in this questionnaire — offer structure, target market, current pricing, founder bio. Leave blank if you don't have a site yet.
02
02 / BUSINESS BASICS
WHAT IT IS.WHO PAYS.
Plain language. The fewer adjectives, the better.
No jargon. What value exchanges hands? Who gives what to whom?
Revenue model. One-time, recurring, transactional, usage-based, commission, other. Be specific.
The actual person who pays. Not "target market" — the specific human with the specific situation.
If you list several, force one. Multiple problems means we pick the wrong lenses.
03
03 / THE NUMBERS
ROUGH IS FINE.UNTRACKED IS DATA.
We need rough magnitudes, not audited financials. "I don't track this" is a valid answer and itself a diagnosis.
Or monthly recurring × 12. Approximate.
Revenue minus direct cost of delivery, as a percentage. Best guess.
Or monthly active users, or active clients. Whatever maps to "people currently paying."
Real price points. Per-unit, per-job, per-month — however you sell. This anchors the Pricing Power Audit to where you actually sit, not where the chain guesses you sit.
Roughly what percentage of revenue comes from each line item today? Sum to ~100. Sharpens the AS-IS → PROPOSED revenue rewiring diagram instead of having the chain invent the proportions.
Where do new customers actually come from? Anchors the CAC Benchmark and channel-related recommendations.
Top 3 categories of work that consume your weekly hours, with rough %. Helps the Automation Surface and First-Hire Roadmap recommend what to delegate first.
Booking, CRM, marketing, accounting, scheduling — what software runs the business now? Lets us recommend automations without suggesting what you already have.
Not hours running the existing business. Extra hours available for executing on a redesign.
A number or range. This calibrates what kind of moves we can recommend.
04
04 / PROBLEM & HISTORY
WHAT YOU'VE TRIED.WHAT YOU'D KEEP.
A number, a state, a specific condition. Not "grow the business."
Capital, time, team size, regulatory, personal commitments. What limits options structurally?
Approaches that failed or plateaued. Why did they stop working? Stops us from re-recommending dead paths.
Even if small. The actual edge. If "nothing" — that's the diagnosis.
Each box reveals a short set of follow-up questions on the next page. Pick whichever apply; skip if none.
05
05 / POSITION & CONSTRAINTS
WHERE COMPETITION SITS.WHERE THE LEAK IS.
The questions on this page surface based on what you told us. Answer what applies. Skip what doesn't.
When a customer doesn't choose you, where do they go? Name them. Why do customers pick them instead?
This surfaces the real value proposition — often different from the stated one.
The load-bearing element. Everything else is potentially removable.
SURFACEDYou mentioned churn or retention. Two more.
Specific reasons in their words. Not "they didn't see value."
If "nothing" — that's the lock-in problem.
SURFACEDYou mentioned alignment or team friction. Two more.
Formal incentives AND informal ones (status, autonomy, fewer headaches). They diverge often.
One specific example. Be concrete.
06
06 / OPERATOR EDGE
MOST FRAMEWORKSSKIP THIS.
Most optimization tools treat operators as interchangeable. We don't. These six surface where your specific background creates a position no one else can credibly occupy.
"The best part is no part. The best operator is the one with the unfair edge."
— DISTILL OPERATING PRINCIPLE
Industries, roles, skills built over years. Go back as far as relevant.
Insider knowledge, lived experience, unconventional perspective. What do you see that they miss?
Include hobbies, communities, past lives. Deep knowledge of any system counts.
Cross-domain imports are the most reliable source of genuine innovation.
A specific customer type who'd trust you more than anyone else, based on your story.
If true, it's a moat. If wrong, surface it now before we design around a false premise.
07
07 / YOUR HYPOTHESIS
WHERE DO YOU THINKTHE LEVER IS?
Your guess at where margin or share would come from if the business were redesigned. We may agree or contradict. Either way, we need to know your hypothesis.
One sentence: "If we [did X], margin/share would improve because [reason]."
✓
DONE / BCD GENERATED
YOUR BUSINESS CONTEXTIS READY.
Below is your Business Context Document. Download it. Save it.
[ → ] NEXT STEP — PICK ONE
If you're attending a workshop: click EMAIL TO FACILITATOR. We'll receive your context and generate your intelligence report before the session.
If you're running Forge yourself: click DOWNLOAD BCD, then save the file to ~/forge-intake/ or upload it directly to Cowork / Claude Code and run /optimize.
A clear plan for your business, backed by market data.