# Case Notes

Writing on brands, signals and the method. Short pieces on what markets reveal, how the method reads them, and what we get right and wrong.

- [What a calm coffee shop teaches about real brands](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/what-a-calm-coffee-shop-teaches-about-real-brands.md): Every company has two brands: the one it planned, and the one customers actually use. Most never check whether they match.
- [Use NPS to monitor. Use The Market Verdict™ to diagnose.](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/use-nps-to-monitor.md): NPS measures how likely customers say they are to recommend you. It can’t tell you why, or what role you play in their lives.
- [Five leaders, five answers: what drift sounds like](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/five-leaders-five-answers.md): Ask five people what your customers really buy. The five different answers are information, not failure.
- [What counts as real evidence about your customers](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/what-counts-as-real-evidence-about-your-customers.md): Four checks to run before you trust anything you’ve heard about your customers.
- [How we'll publish predictions, including our misses](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/how-we-publish-predictions.md): Anyone can explain the past. Every outside read we produce ends with a dated prediction that could prove us wrong.
- [What brand drift costs, and how to work it out yourself](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/what-brand-drift-costs.md): Brand drift never shows up as a line item. Here is a simple way to put a number on it for your own business.
- [What due diligence can't see](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/what-due-diligence-cant-see.md): Commercial due diligence covers a lot of ground. The Market Verdict adds one focused lens: the role customers give the brand, read from their behavior over time.
- [Join the pilot: The Market Verdict Pilot Edition](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/join-the-pilot.md): We’re opening The Market Verdict to a small number of companies before launch, free, in exchange for honest feedback.
- [Why an independent outside read strengthens your findings](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/why-an-independent-outside-read-strengthens-your-findings.md): Your own review can’t check itself. An independent outside read gives your findings something to be tested against. Agreement supports a claim; it doesn’t prove it.
- [The ICP on your wall is a hypothesis](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/the-icp-on-your-wall-is-a-hypothesis.md): What Mesa Foods, the workbook’s fictional example, learned from its first 40 customers.
- [Inside the workbooks](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/inside-the-workbooks.md): What you actually get when your pilot place opens, page by page: one workbook, three steps and a one-page Brand Brief.
- [Where The Market Verdict™ comes from](https://themarketverdict.com/case-notes/where-the-market-verdict-comes-from.md): The Market Verdict starts where The Mom Test and Jobs to Be Done leave off. What it took from them, what it adds, and where it is still thinner.