# The outside read: a second opinion that never sees your answers

Included in the pilot. You don’t write the questions or choose who answers. The outside read looks only at what’s already public: how people behave, what they buy instead, where they get stuck. The researcher never receives your workbook or internal findings.

Outside reports are scheduled separately, after you finish Steps 1 and 2.

## What's in a report

**Brand Intelligence Report (BIR):** for companies with customers.

- The short version: the brand you planned, set against what the public evidence supports.
- What customers do: up to four findings, each saying how sure we are.
- Three possible answers, each tested and given one of four verdicts: Holds · Wrong · Not tested yet · Holds for one group.
- Your Brand Brief from the outside, in the same eight fields as your workbook.
- What is pulling you away: a timeline of your own public decisions.
- Three actions, one dated prediction, and the sources and limits.

**Idea Intelligence Assessment (IIA):** for startups and new ideas, before there are customers.

- What people do today instead, and where money already goes.
- Who else does this, and three possible answers.
- The evidence check: Repeated · Consistent · Costly · Lasting.
- How big it could be, the rough economics, and three experiments in order.
- Go, Go with one condition, or Not yet.

Every claim names its source. Where the evidence runs out, the report says so.

## How it works

1. **You finish Steps 1 and 2.** Then we start researching your market. We never receive your workbook or your team’s answers.
2. **The market is read independently.** Public evidence only: reviews, forums, complaints, who customers switch to, the words they use.
3. **You seal your findings.** Save a dated copy of your completed findings before you see the report. Keep the original; record later changes separately.
4. **You run the Crosscheck.** With the Crosscheck worksheet and an optional AI assistant file. Each claim is supported, challenged or left open for testing.

## The Crosscheck: after your workbook, never before.

Once you’ve finished your workbook and sealed a dated copy of your findings, we send your outside read with the Crosscheck Worksheet and an optional AI assistant file.

Then you set what you believed beside what the market shows, one Brand Brief field at a time, using the same four verdicts as your workbook: Holds, Wrong, Not tested yet, Holds for one group. The stronger evidence wins, whichever side it came from, and agreement supports a finding without proving it.

You get the worksheet only after your findings are sealed, so the outside read can’t shape what you write.

See a sample for each edition: [Samples](https://themarketverdict.com/samples.md). Follow one fictional company through the whole pilot: [Velmont Outdoor](https://themarketverdict.com/worked-example/velmont.md).

[Join the free pilot](https://themarketverdict.com/waitlist)