Using LivePlan's Market Research
Market Research is a Premium feature that generates a tailored market analysis for your business, helping you understand your opportunity, customers, and competitors in minutes.
This guide will explain how Market Research works, how to generate and edit your report, and how to use those insights to strengthen your business plan.
How Market Research Works
Market Research uses AI to gather and organize relevant information about your industry, customers, and competitors. It analyzes publicly available sources specific to your business and location.
After you provide context about your business, LivePlan’s AI:
Searches the web for reputable, publicly available sources relevant to your industry and location
Identifies approximately 40–50 high-quality links
Extracts relevant market, demographic, and competitive insights
Organizes those findings into a structured, easy-to-read report
Each fact or data point included in the report is supported by a referenced source. At the end of your report, you’ll see a list of the sources used during analysis.
This structure is designed to give you greater transparency into where the information comes from and allow you to review or validate the data if needed.
The exact data shown depends on your business type, market, and geographic context.
How to Generate Market Research
Click the Market Research tab in the main navigation.
Click Start Your Research to begin inputting contextual information for the generated report.
Complete the short setup process (business type, target customer, and problem you solve).
Confirm or refine any prefilled information throughout this setup.
Click Start Market Research to generate your market research report.
The Market Research tool will then spend some time generating your report.
The research is saved within the Market Research tab, where it can be exported as a supplement to your business plan.
What Market Research Generates
Once your report is complete, LivePlan organizes your findings into a structured market analysis. Each section is designed to help you understand your opportunity more clearly and make informed strategic decisions.
Your report may include:
Executive Overview
Market Size Analysis (TAM, SAM, SOM)
Demographics & Customer Data (varies by B2C/B2B)
Target Customer Profile
Customer Personas with narrative, needs, and opportunities
Trends & Buying Behaviors
Market Risks
Direct and Indirect Competition Analysis
Sources list of referenced public data
Best Practices for Using Market Research
Be specific when describing your business and target audience.
Use TAM/SAM/SOM modeling to pressure-test revenue expectations.
Align marketing messaging with persona insights.
Compare your pricing and positioning against competitor analysis.
Integrate insights into your financial forecast assumptions.
Market Research is most valuable when it informs real decisions. Use the insights to validate your opportunity, refine your pricing, strengthen your positioning, and support your financial assumptions.
The goal isn’t just to complete a section of your plan, it’s to build a stronger foundation for your business.
How The Data Is Used Across Your Plan
Your customer data informs your marketing strategy
Demographics, buying behaviors, and persona insights help clarify who you’re targeting and how you should position your messaging. This strengthens your Marketing and Sales sections with more specific, data-backed language.
Your market size supports your financial forecast
TAM, SAM, and SOM calculations help you pressure-test revenue expectations. Instead of estimating sales based on intuition, you can align your forecast with realistic market opportunity.
Your competitive analysis supports your positioning
Understanding your direct and indirect competitors helps define how your business is differentiated, influencing pricing strategy, go-to-market approach, and value proposition.
Your risk analysis strengthens credibility
Highlighting structural or economic risks in your market demonstrates to lenders and investors that your plan is realistic and defensible.
LivePlan integrates these insights directly into relevant sections of your business plan, turning research into structured, investor-ready content where it belongs.
Why Market Research Is Beneficial
Market research is often one of the most time-consuming and confusing parts of writing a business plan. Without a structured approach, it can quickly turn into an overwhelming process. You may find yourself:
Opening dozens of browser tabs trying to estimate market size
Finding conflicting data from different sources
Struggling to determine which competitors truly matter
Guessing at who your ideal customer is
Leaving sections incomplete or filled with generic statements
This can lead to a plan that feels unfinished, not grounded in real data, disconnected from financial projections, and less credible to lenders or investors.
Market Research helps solve this by:
Bringing clarity to your opportunity with realistic market sizing (TAM, SAM, SOM) and demographic insights.
Replacing overwhelm with organization by compiling relevant data into one structured report.
Connecting research directly to pricing, marketing, and financial strategy decisions.
Increasing confidence when presenting your plan to lenders, investors, or partners.