Players
Who creates harmony?
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Every feature exists because someone is struggling to make progress. No struggle, no feature. These are the jobs — verified by watching what construction sales teams actually do.
Job 1: Know Who I'm Dealing With
Situation: A BD manager prepares for a meeting tomorrow with a client they haven't spoken to in 3 months. They need to know: who else from their company is involved, what deals are active, what the last conversation was about.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Struggling moment | Searching email, spreadsheets, and memory to reconstruct a relationship |
| Current workaround | Email search + notebook + asking colleagues "have you spoken to...?" |
| What progress looks like | Open a contact, see everything — company, linked deals, full activity history |
| Hidden objection | "I don't want to enter data just so a system can show it back to me" |
| Switch trigger | When they lose a deal because they didn't know a colleague already had the relationship |
Job 2: See Where Every Deal Stands
Situation: Monday morning. A sales director needs to know: which deals are moving, which are stalled, which need action this week, and what the pipeline is worth.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Struggling moment | Chasing reps for updates, reconciling spreadsheets, guessing pipeline health |
| Current workaround | Weekly team call + shared Google Sheet + gut feeling |
| What progress looks like | One screen shows every deal, every stage, every value, every next action |
| Hidden objection | "My reps won't update this — I'll end up maintaining it alone" |
| Switch trigger | When a forecast is wrong because a deal silently died 3 weeks ago |
Job 3: Win More Bids, Waste Less Time
Situation: An RFP lands. The team has 3 weeks to respond. Half the questions have been answered before in previous bids, but nobody can find those answers.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Struggling moment | Rebuilding proposals from scratch, duplicating effort across bids |
| Current workaround | Copy-paste from old Word docs, hope someone saved the last version |
| What progress looks like | Upload an RFP, auto-fill 70% from past answers, human reviews the rest |
| Hidden objection | "AI-generated answers will be generic and need so much editing they're not worth it" |
| Switch trigger | When they miss a deadline because the team spent all their time on formatting, not content |
Job 4: Never Let a Follow-Up Fall Through
Situation: A site visit happened last Tuesday. Three action items came out of it. By Friday, one has been forgotten, one is assigned to someone who doesn't know about it, and one is waiting on a document nobody has sent.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Struggling moment | Action items live in meeting notes that nobody re-reads |
| Current workaround | Personal to-do lists, sticky notes, memory |
| What progress looks like | Tasks linked to deals and contacts, with due dates, assignees, and status |
| Hidden objection | "I already have a to-do app — why do I need tasks inside the CRM too?" |
| Switch trigger | When a client says "you promised to send that last week" |
Job 5: Link People, Places, and Projects
Situation: A solar installation project involves a property owner, an EPC contractor, two subcontractors, and a financier. The project ties to a specific warehouse address. Three separate bids have been submitted over 18 months as the scope changed.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Struggling moment | Relationships between entities exist in the salesperson's head, not the system |
| Current workaround | Notes fields, custom tags, "see deal X for context" comments |
| What progress looks like | A venture page showing: the property, all linked companies (with roles), all deals, all contacts |
| Hidden objection | "Our deals are simple enough — we don't need all this linking" |
| Switch trigger | When a new hire joins and can't understand any deal without 30 minutes of verbal context |
ICP: Construction/Solar EPC Sales Team
The ideal customer for the CRM+RFP product. This is an archetype, not a named company.
| Attribute | Specification |
|---|---|
| Role | Sales director, BD manager, or bid manager at a construction or solar EPC firm |
| Context | 10-200 employees, active RFP volume (5+ bids/quarter), using spreadsheets for bid tracking |
| Geography | New Zealand initially, Australia expansion |
| Budget | $30-80/seat/month (vs Salesforce $75-300) — pain threshold is time, not money |
| Shared Pain | 3-5 tools per deal, 20-40h per RFP, copy-paste from old bids, missed deadlines |
Psycho-Logic
What they SAY is not what they DO. Apply the Ogilvy-Sutherland protocol.
| They Say | They Mean |
|---|---|
| "We need a better CRM" | "We need our reps to actually use the CRM we have" |
| "AI will save us time" | "Show me it works with OUR data, not a demo" |
| "We've tried Salesforce" | "We configured it for months, nobody used it, we went back to spreadsheets" |
| "Our team won't adopt a new tool" | "Last time we switched tools, adoption failed and I looked bad" |
The stated problem: We need to track deals better and win more bids.
The real problem: We need a system that's easier to use than spreadsheets — not just more powerful, but actually easier.
The gap: Every CRM is sold on features. Adoption fails because the daily experience is worse than the spreadsheet it replaced.
The unlock: Answer library auto-fill creates positive ROI on data entry — every answer you write makes the next RFP faster. The data entry IS the value creation.
Awareness Levels
Where the buyer sits determines what we build next.
| Level | They Know | What We Need to Show | Feature Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unaware | Using spreadsheets, don't see the problem | The cost of lost deals and duplicated effort | Marketing, not product |
| Problem Aware | "We lose track of deals" | Name their pain back to them | Dashboard, pipeline view |
| Solution Aware | CRMs exist, tried Salesforce/HubSpot | Why construction needs a vertical CRM | Property registry, RFP workflow |
| Product Aware | Know this tool, not convinced | Remove the hidden objection (adoption, data entry) | CSV import, auto-fill, clean UX |
| Most Aware | Ready to switch | Reduce friction to zero | Onboarding wizard, data migration |
Mycelium Capability
The Sales CRM & RFP is a demand-driven sales capability. Currently built for construction and solar, but the RFP workflow, answer library, and confidence scoring patterns apply to any industry with competitive bidding.
| Context | Job | ICP | Revenue Path |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal (dogfood) | Track deals, win bids for Stackmates | Construction/solar EPC teams | Product validation + first customer |
| External (pilot) | Win more bids with less admin | Construction/solar 10-200 employees | SaaS $30-80/seat/month |
| Expansion | Same patterns, different industry | Real estate, consulting, government contracting | Vertical licensing |
Currently Growing In: stackmates
Context
- ICP Framework — Target definition with psycho-logic
- Jobs To Be Done — Demand-side thinking
- JTBD Interviews — The Four Moments framework
- Validate Demand — Awareness levels and kill signals
- Construction Industry — Domain context