Primary Research
for Commercial Due Diligence

Fragmented markets rarely show up cleanly in secondary data, so diligence has to be built from the ground up through primary conversations. We source and interview operators, regional buyers, and smaller competitors across the specific geographies in scope, in their native language where needed, to map share, pricing, and demand that no report captures. With coverage across 140+ countries and 35+ languages and 5 to 50 interviews a day, a scattered market can be sized and validated inside a single diligence week.

Pricing power shows up in what buyers say when a vendor raises prices, not in a historical margin chart. We interview current customers and industry operators about recent increases, willingness to pay, available alternatives, and the switching effort a change would trigger. Those conversations reveal whether margins rest on genuine differentiation or on inertia a new entrant could break. Qualitative rationale alongside quantitative signals such as price sensitivity gives a deal team a defensible read on how durable the margin really is.

Mid-market teams do not have to trade speed for quality or overspend to protect it. A managed model that sources, screens, and conducts interviews for you removes the internal time cost that usually forces that trade-off. We ramp within 12 to 24 hours, deliver first interviews inside 48, and run 5 to 50 a day, so a team gets qualitative depth and a workable sample without staffing the calls itself. Scope, geography, and team size flex daily, so spend tracks the decision rather than a fixed package.

Reliability in time-critical, multi-country diligence comes from the operating model, not from promises. We run parallel interview tracks across regions in local business hours, staffed by 100+ consultants covering 35+ languages and 140+ countries, with a four-eyes quality check on every interview. Daily touchpoints let the team redirect targets or geographies overnight as findings emerge. A track record of 400+ diligence, strategy, and red-flag projects a year means the process holds up when the deal clock is unforgiving.

Daily debriefs turn a research sprint into a live feedback loop instead of a single report at the end. Each morning you receive the prior day's tabulated results and a short synthesis, then a 15 to 30 minute touchpoint to discuss what emerged. That cadence lets the team test a hypothesis on day one, confirm or kill it, and redirect the questionnaire, targets, or geographies for the next day. No interview budget is spent chasing a question the early data has already answered.

Early landscaping benefits from a handful of well-chosen conversations before a formal process commits real budget. A short primary sprint with operators and buyers in the target market gives a first read on demand, competitive structure, and where the real questions sit. Because ramp-up runs 12 to 24 hours and first interviews arrive inside 48, a team can test whether a space is worth a full diligence effort within days, using current market signal rather than dated secondary sources.

Customer demand is validated by talking to the people who actually buy, not by extrapolating from a market report. We interview current and prospective customers about their real need, budget, purchase triggers, and the alternatives they weigh, then compare that against the target's demand assumptions. Interviews with current market participants surface unprompted concerns a survey would miss, so a deal team learns early whether demand is durable or dependent on a handful of accounts before committing to the deal.

Service businesses live or die on relationships, delivery quality, and retention, most of which sit outside the financial statements. Targeted interviews with clients, referral sources, and operators reveal why customers stay or leave, how dependent revenue is on specific people, and whether service quality scales. We reach these decision-makers directly and adapt the line of questioning daily as themes emerge, giving a service-sector deal a read on retention risk and reputation that secondary data cannot provide.

Diligence compresses into one to two weeks when sourcing, screening, and interviewing run in parallel from day one rather than in sequence. We ramp within 12 to 24 hours, deliver first interviews inside 48, and conduct 5 to 50 a day across the geographies in scope. Daily results let the deal team build conviction as evidence accumulates instead of waiting for a final report, so a full qualitative and quantitative read is ready before an IC date that is only days out.

Work timed to an investment committee date needs first signal fast and decision-grade depth by the deadline. We start interviews within 48 hours of kick-off and deliver tabulated results daily, so early red flags surface while there is still time to act on them. As the IC date approaches, accumulated interviews give the diligence its sample and its rationale together, and same-day scope changes let the team chase the specific questions the committee will ask.

Product-market fit in B2B is tested by asking real buyers whether the product solves a problem they will pay to fix. We interview current users, evaluators who chose an alternative, and prospects who passed, covering the use case, adoption friction, and where the product falls short. Speaking with current market participants rather than a vendor-supplied reference list keeps the read honest, so a deal team sees whether fit is broad and durable or narrow and account-dependent.

A management growth plan is only as strong as the market assumptions under it, and those can be tested directly. We interview customers, channel partners, and operators about the demand, pricing headroom, and competitive response the plan assumes, then flag where the market view diverges from management's. Because interviews run daily and the questionnaire flexes as findings land, a deal team can probe the specific levers a plan depends on, whether that is new-segment entry, price increases, or share gains.

Switching barriers are best measured by asking customers what leaving would actually cost them in time, money, and risk. We interview current users about contract terms, integration depth, retraining, and the pull of alternatives, then separate genuine lock-in from habit a competitor could break. Speaking candidly and unprompted, current customers reveal the real friction behind a switch, giving a deal team a grounded read on retention durability rather than one inferred from churn figures alone.

A moat is credible only when customers and competitors describe it the same way management does. We interview buyers about why they chose the target over alternatives, and interview market participants about how easily the advantage could be copied or eroded. Those conversations test whether differentiation rests on switching costs, technology, brand, or scale, and how durable each one is. The result gives a deal team evidence for the moat rather than a management narrative taken at face value.

A bottom-up market model is built by sizing real customer segments from the ground up and validating each input with people in the market. We interview operators and buyers to establish unit counts, purchase frequency, pricing, and adoption within defined segments, then assemble those into a defensible total rather than backing into a number from a published top-line. Because we can run enough interviews per segment within a diligence week, the model rests on primary inputs a deal team can defend line by line.

On-the-ground operators are the fastest check on whether a market-size or growth forecast holds. We interview participants across the value chain about current demand, capacity, and the drivers behind a projected growth rate, then surface where their reality diverges from the model. Current market participants catch overstated adoption curves or demand that a spreadsheet extrapolation misses, so a deal team can adjust the case before it reaches committee rather than after close.

Model assumptions become defensible when each one is tied to what real market participants report rather than to a planning estimate. We target the specific inputs a deal turns on, such as pricing, churn, attach rates, or win rates, and gather both quantitative signals and the rationale behind them from customers and operators. Delivered as tabulated daily data plus synthesis, those inputs let a deal team replace placeholder assumptions with primary evidence the investment case can stand on.

Early red-flag reviews exist to kill weak deals fast, and a short primary sprint does exactly that. We run a focused set of interviews with customers and operators to test the one or two assumptions most likely to break the thesis, with first results inside 48 hours. If a serious concern surfaces, the team learns early enough to pass before sinking full diligence cost. If not, the work rolls straight into confirmatory diligence without restarting.

Software diligence needs to hear from the people who deploy, renew, and churn the product, not only from the vendor. We interview current users, administrators, and lost accounts about adoption depth, integration stickiness, competitive alternatives, and renewal intent. Those conversations expose whether usage is broad or shelfware, and whether retention rests on real value or contract inertia. Reaching current buyers directly gives a deal team a grounded read on retention and expansion for a SaaS target within a diligence week.

Unit economics tell you what is happening; customer interviews tell you why. We speak with customers across different cohorts and tenures about acquisition, expansion, and the reasons they renew or leave, then map those rationales onto the retention and cohort patterns in the model. That combination shows a deal team whether strong cohort metrics are durable or flattered by a few large accounts, and where acquisition cost or churn is likely to move after close.