Note and Vote: Storevine Target Customer Specificity
Question
“Which specific retailer segment should Storevine target in v0.1?”
The Basics block had stalled at 10:10 PT with the team unable to converge on target customer specificity. Three positions had emerged:
- Devon: “All SMB retailers; we’ll discover the segment that pulls hardest”
- Mei: “Specialty retailers only; that’s where Carlos’s expertise + Faire-adjacent design pattern work”
- Carlos: “Owner-operator independent stores under 30 locations; the corporate-chain dynamics are different”
The facilitator (Devon, rotating role) called for a tool-note-and-vote rather than continuing open discussion. Decider (Mei) confirmed.
Roles
| Role | Member |
|---|---|
| Facilitator | Devon |
| Decider | Mei |
| Participants | Mei, Devon, Tasha, Carlos |
| Scribe | Tasha (lightweight; captures vote tallies) |
Protocol Executed
Step 1: Silent ideation (5 minutes). Each participant wrote 3-5 candidate target customer definitions on individual sticky notes, no discussion.
Step 2: Affinity grouping (4 minutes). Devon led a quick affinity pass on the wall; 14 individual notes grouped into 6 clusters.
Step 3: Silent voting (3 minutes). Each participant gets 3 dot-votes; votes can be split or stacked.
Step 4: Decider supervote (5 minutes). Mei reviews vote tally + brief discussion (under 5 minutes); commits to the choice.
Step 5: Capture (3 minutes). Tasha records the decision and rationale; Devon resumes Basics block at 10:40 PT.
Total elapsed: 20 minutes versus the open-discussion 30-minute stall.
Candidate Set (After Affinity)
| Cluster | Notes contributing | Vote count |
|---|---|---|
| A: Specialty retail 5-50 stores, merchandising-led categories | 4 notes (Mei x2, Tasha x1, Carlos x1) | 7 |
| B: Owner-operator independent under 30 stores | 3 notes (Carlos x2, Mei x1) | 3 |
| C: All SMB retailers including services + food | 2 notes (Devon x2) | 1 |
| D: Faire-adjacent specialty retailers specifically | 2 notes (Tasha x1, Mei x1) | 1 |
| E: Outdoor + specialty grocery only | 2 notes (Carlos x1, Tasha x1) | 0 |
| F: Mid-market chains 50-500 stores | 1 note (Devon x1) | 0 |
Total dot-votes: 12 (3 per participant x 4 participants). Cluster A won 7 of 12 (58%).
Decider Supervote
Mei reviewed and committed:
“We’re going with Cluster A: specialty retail, 5-50 stores, merchandising-led categories. The 7 votes reflect what the team actually believes; my 2 votes are in there. Devon, your ‘all SMB’ frame is honest about discovery uncertainty, but a pre-seed team can’t carry that ambiguity into Day 2 Approach Options. Carlos, your ‘owner-operator under 30’ frame is close to Cluster A and I think we capture the operator part by emphasizing the 5-50 band. We’re not married to it forever; if pilot data shows a tighter or wider band is the right fit, we adjust at v1.0. For Foundation Sprint output, Cluster A is the target.”
Decision Recorded
Target customer for Storevine v0.1: specialty retail, 5-50 stores, merchandising-led categories (outdoor, home goods, specialty grocery, kids/toys, gift, fashion-adjacent), located in the US.
This decision feeds directly into the Basics bundled artifact (sample_tool-foundation-sprint-basics_storevine_retail-direction.md). The Basics artifact’s “Not the target customer” section enumerates the exclusions that fall out of this decision.
What This Note-and-Vote Did NOT Decide
- Pricing model (out of scope for Basics; covered at Differentiation if at all)
- Distribution channel (out of scope; downstream of top bet)
- Which subcategory within specialty retail to lead with (out of scope; the team handles this implicitly in design-partner selection)
Decider Checkpoint (lightweight; inside Basics block)
Mei explicitly affirms the decision is binding for the rest of the sprint:
- Cluster A target customer is locked for Days 1 and 2.
- Re-litigation requires explicit Decider re-opening; not automatic.
- Devon, Tasha, Carlos commit to building on Cluster A without revisiting.
Signed: Mei, 2026-05-18 10:38 PT