Productside Ansoff Growth Options
Purpose
Lay out where growth could come from, with evidence behind each option and the risk gradient respected.
Four quadrants, ordered by risk: market penetration (existing product, existing market), market development (existing product, new market), product development (new product, existing market), diversification (new product, new market). The gradient is not decorative — a recommendation that leads with diversification needs to explain why penetration is exhausted, with evidence that it is.
The output is a sequence, not a ranked list. Sequence implies dependency, and dependency is what makes something a plan rather than a menu.
This skill consumes evidence. Where a quadrant has no evidenced move, the honest entry is "no evidence found" and the quadrant stays empty. Inventing a diversification play to fill the box is how a growth plan acquires a liability.
When to Use It
Use it when the question is where to grow next and the evidence exists. Use it especially when the room's default answer is a new market — this framework's main service is asking whether the current one is finished.
Do not use it when:
- You do not know the market's structure. Run
mi-analyze-five-forcesfirst; the structure determines which quadrants are even viable. - You need the market's size. That is
mi-size-tam-sam-som, which this should consume rather than estimate. - The question is your position rather than your direction. That is
mi-analyze-swot. - You have no evidence. A quadrant grid filled from a workshop is a record of enthusiasm.
Input
Require:
- fused evidence or sweep outputs with sources
- your current market and product boundaries, stated — the quadrants are defined relative to them, and a vague boundary makes every quadrant assignment arbitrary
- the investment decision this supports
Anything supplied in the invocation, attachments, a fusion brief, or earlier conversation counts as context already given.
Example invocation: Use $mi-analyze-ansoff using the fusion brief and forces read in this thread. Current market: mid-market RevOps, US and Canada. Decision: where next year's investment goes.
Key Concepts
The risk gradient is load-bearing — Penetration is lowest risk because both the product and the market are known. Diversification is highest because neither is. A plan that starts at the far corner is not automatically wrong, but it carries a burden of proof: show that penetration is exhausted, with evidence. Skipping that burden is how organizations spend a year learning a new market while a competitor takes the one they already had.
Violation signal: Diversification is recommended first and no evidence is offered that the current market is saturated.
An empty quadrant is an acceptable answer — And it is usually diversification. A quadrant with no evidenced move should be left empty and marked "no evidence found," because a fabricated entry there is not merely padding — it is a proposal that someone may fund. This is the one framework where filling the boxes creates direct financial exposure.
Violation signal: All four quadrants contain the same number of moves.
Penetration is checked with numbers, not with feelings — "We've saturated our market" is nearly always false in a fragmented category. Test it: current customers against the addressable denominator, win rate against the served segment, share of the non-consumption alternative. The correctly-checked penetration quadrant is usually the fullest one, and it is usually the least popular in the room, because expansion is more exciting than finishing.
Violation signal: Penetration is dismissed in a sentence with no denominator anywhere in the document.
Every move carries a risk rating and its justification — "High risk" without a reason is a hedge. The rating comes from what is unknown: an unknown buyer, an unknown regulatory regime, an unknown channel, an unproven technology. Naming which unknown drives the rating is what lets someone reduce it cheaply — often with research rather than with investment.
Violation signal: Risk ratings appear as labels with no statement of what is actually unknown.
Sequence, not ranking — A ranked list says which move is best. A sequence says which move must happen before another can, and why. "Penetration through Q2 funds the market-development pilot in Q3" is a plan. "1. Penetration 2. Market development" is a preference. Sequence is where dependencies, funding, and learning order become visible.
Violation signal: The recommendation is a numbered list with no dependency stated between items.
Name the "not yet" and the breaking assumption — Two closing lines earn the document. Not yet: the tempting move, and why the evidence says wait — this is what stops the same proposal returning every quarter. The assumption that breaks this sequence: the single belief that, if wrong, invalidates the order. Naming it turns a plan into something that can be monitored.
Violation signal: The plan ends on a recommendation with no stated condition that would invalidate it.
Guided Context Capture
Follow Guided Context Capture.
Open with: "This is an Ansoff read — growth options across four quadrants with evidence per move, empty quadrants left empty, ending in a recommended sequence and the assumption that would break it. Forty-five to ninety minutes. Up to three setup questions. Choose 1. Guided, 2. Context dump, or 3. Best guess."
In Guided mode, ask one at a time, hard cap of three:
Ansoff Setup Q1/3— What are your current market and product boundaries? The quadrants are defined relative to them.Ansoff Setup Q2/3— What investment decision does this support, and over what horizon?Ansoff Setup Q3/3— Is there a move already being proposed internally? I will assess it in place rather than pretending the room is empty.
Context dump is the expected mode. Extract evidence, sort candidate moves into quadrants, and ask only about gaps. In Best guess mode, build from available evidence, leave unsupported quadrants empty, and name each assumption. On silence: annual investment horizon, no pre-proposed move, penetration checked first. Proceed.
What It Produces
Complete the Ansoff Growth Options:
- current boundaries, stated
- two to three candidate moves per quadrant where evidence supports them, each with evidence and a risk rating with its justification
- empty quadrants left empty, marked "no evidence found"
- the penetration check, with numbers
- a recommended sequence with dependencies
- not yet, and the assumption that breaks this sequence
- Final Step block
Workflow
- State web access in one line, and state that this run consumes evidence rather than collecting it.
- State current market and product boundaries. Every quadrant assignment depends on them.
- Run the penetration check first, with numbers. Customers against the denominator, win rate in the served segment, share against non-consumption. Report the numbers even if they are uncomfortable.
- Populate market penetration with two to three evidenced moves. This quadrant is usually the fullest and usually the least popular.
- Populate market development, naming what is unknown about the new market — buyer, regulation, channel, or title prevalence.
- Populate product development, naming what is unproven about the new product.
- Assess diversification honestly. If nothing is evidenced, leave it empty and say so. Do not invent a move here.
- Rate each move and justify the rating by naming the specific unknown that drives it.
- Write the recommended sequence with dependencies: what funds what, what teaches what, what must complete before what begins.
- Write "not yet" — the tempting move and why the evidence says wait — and the assumption that breaks this sequence. Then stop.
Human Decision Gate
Present the sequence first, then the quadrants. Highlight:
- the penetration numbers, especially if they contradict the room's assumption
- which quadrant is empty and why
- the "not yet" move, since it is usually someone's proposal
- the breaking assumption, and how it would be monitored
Use an Adaptive Decision Ladder: Commit to the sequence, Fund research to reduce the top risk before committing, Re-run with different market boundaries, or Other (specify).
Evidence and Attribution Rules
- Label every move Fact, Inference (chain shown), or Assumption (basis stated).
- Do not invent: market sizes, buyer populations, regulatory conditions, channel economics, or competitor withdrawal. A growth plan is funded, which makes a fabricated premise into a budget line.
- Every move carries at least one cited signal, or it does not go in a quadrant.
- The penetration check requires a real denominator, sourced. Without one, say the check could not be run.
- A risk rating requires a named unknown.
- Do not present an untested market-development move as lower risk than an evidenced product-development move merely because the matrix orders them that way.
Common Failure Modes
- Recommending diversification without showing penetration is exhausted
- Filling the diversification quadrant so the grid looks complete
- Dismissing penetration in a sentence with no denominator
- Rating risk without naming the unknown behind it
- Producing a ranked list and calling it a sequence
- Omitting "not yet," so the same proposal returns next quarter
- Ending with no breaking assumption, so the plan cannot be monitored
- Assigning quadrants against vague boundaries, making every assignment arbitrary
Assets and Examples
- Ansoff Growth Options template
- Synthetic worked example
- Weak example
Final Step
## Final Step
1. Commit to the recommended sequence (Recommended)
2. Fund research to reduce the top-rated risk before committing
3. Set a quarterly review against the breaking assumption
4. Size the market-development move before it starts
Reply with `1`, `2`, `3`, `4`, `1 and 3`, `Verbose Mode`, or a custom path.