Mapping and testing a B2B value proposition in a leaner way

1. Overview

I led a research project to map pain points, tasks, and goals within a building materials ecosystem, uncovering gaps in product offerings and proposing strategies to deliver real value to industries.

For confidentiality, some specifics—like survey protocols, sample details, metrics and other deliverables—aren’t included in this case.

2. Background

The focus of this project was an ecosystem that includes a marketplace for building materials, a loyalty program connecting industries with stores, and another loyalty program linking industries with construction professionals. While these products aimed to provide value, it became evident internally that there was a lack of clarity around:

What was being offered as products and services.
What industries truly valued as clients.

The Squad Industries team, responsible for delivering value to clients, led this initiative. My role was to plan and execute the research to uncover pain points and identify ways to smooth value connections across the ecosystem.

3. Problem statement

The challenge

The ecosystem’s products and services weren’t fully aligned with the needs of the industries they served. This led to missed opportunities in building strong relationships and delivering meaningful value.

Key questions we wanted to answer

What do industries see as their pain points, tasks, and goals within the ecosystem?
How can we connect the value provided by different products more effectively?
Where are the gaps in our offerings, and how can they be addressed?

4. Research

The research process combined internal insights with structured evaluation methods:

Primary objective

Understand how to deliver real value to industries.

Secondary objective

Visualize and smooth value connections between the ecosystem’s products.

Methodology

Interviews: conducted with strategic representatives from each product to map the industries’ pain points, tasks, and goals.
Curation: a Business Coordinator and an ex-industry collaborator reviewed and refined the findings.
Evaluation: leveraged Osterwalder’s framework to measure offerings and assess whether items were offered, partially offered, or not offered; and whether they were attended, partially attended, or not attended.

Note: details about the target, protocol, population, and other specifics are omitted for strategic reasons but were carefully considered during the research.

5. Ideation

Based on the research, the following steps were prioritized:

Identify gaps: highlight areas where products and services fell short of meeting industry needs.
Propose a consultancy team:iIntroduce a team to address gaps, test solutions as an MVP concierge, and gather deeper insights.
View results as hypotheses: interpret the findings as starting points for further validation with external stakeholders.

6. Results and insights

The research revealed critical gaps in the ecosystem’s value proposition:

Gaps in offerings: many products and services were not fully offered or attended, revealing areas of weakness alongside existing strengths.
Mapped pain points: key user frustrations and unmet needs were documented, forming the basis for future improvements.
Value connections: the study provided a clearer view of how products could work together to deliver seamless value across the ecosystem.

While the findings relied on internal insights rather than customer feedback (a deviation from Osterwalder’s method), interpreting them as hypotheses and integrating a consultancy team mitigated this limitation.

7. Reflection and learnings

Challenges

Relying solely on internal feedback instead of customer insights posed a risk to the accuracy of findings.
Balancing a lean approach with the depth required for meaningful results was a constant challenge.

Key takeaways

Even internal research can yield valuable hypotheses when approached with structured, critical and strategic thinking.
A consultancy team can act as both a gap filler and a testing ground for future innovations.
Adapting methodologies like Osterwalder’s can help meet tight deadlines without compromising project goals.

8. Future opportunities

Building on this research, the next steps could include:

Customer validation: testing the hypotheses with industry stakeholders to refine offerings and align with real needs.
Strengthening the consultancy team: expanding its role to continuously monitor gaps and test new ideas.
Integrating products: focusing on seamless connections between products to maximize value delivery across the ecosystem.

This project has set a foundation for improving value delivery within the ecosystem. As the consultancy team rolls out and validates hypotheses, updates will be shared.