Deal ownership

# Deal ownership

## Goal

Write the founder-led path through a live deal: discovery, demonstration, negotiation, and close, using the inherited ICP, position, price, and pipeline gates. The output is a play the founder can run the same way twice, including when the honest move is to disqualify.

This is a planning task. Do not schedule meetings, send proposals, or negotiate with anyone. Do not invent deals.

Complete the analysis autonomously. Do not stop to ask clarifying questions. When evidence is missing, make the narrowest assumption that permits a usable play or `HOLD`, label it, and state what changes if it is false.

Do not modify application code.

## Prerequisites

Read the latest ICP, positioning, pricing, pipeline, nurture, and collateral if present; product workflows needed for a truthful demo; win/loss and objection notes; and any existing `docs/gtm/deals.md`, `docs/gtm/deals.yaml`, and `docs/gtm/deals-changelog.md`.

If pipeline qualification cannot fail, fix that first or return `REVISIT PIPELINE`.

If pricing is `HOLD`, discovery and demo plays may still be written, but close and paper must not imply a finished offer.

## Evidence standard

Use the shared GTM labels.

What the buyer did recently beats what they say they would do. A demo compliment is not value. A request for a proposal is not budget. A legal review is not a yes.

## Step 1: Define the deal object

A deal is one purchasing unit, one job, one economic buyer path. Record the fields the founder must collect before calling it a deal: trigger, alternative, buyer, champion, prerequisites, success metric, timeline, and disqualifiers.

If those fields cannot be collected in the first two conversations, the play is too vague.

## Step 2: Discovery

Write a discovery guide that follows recent behavior:

* last time the job failed or hurt
* what they did instead
* what it cost
* who paid that cost
* what they already tried to buy or build
* why now
* what would make them wait

Forbidden: pitching in the first ten minutes, leading questions that only confirm the homepage, and treating “we should stay in touch” as a next step.

Exit discovery with either a dated buyer-owned next step or a disqualification.

## Step 3: Demonstration

Design the demo around the smallest workflow that produces the ICP value metric, using real or sanitized representative inputs. Do not tour the product.

Specify:

* setup required
* the job being shown
* what success looks like on screen
* what not to show
* how a failed demo is recorded

If the product cannot complete that workflow without founder heroics, the demo is a concierge performance. Label it that way and do not pretend it is product value.

## Step 4: Mutual plan and negotiation

Write the mutual close plan: remaining proof, security or legal steps, economic-buyer meeting, paper, and first implementation date.

Negotiation rules:

* trade, do not just cut price
* discounts require a dated concession from the buyer
* custom work is scoped and priced, or refused
* terms the company cannot support are not offered
* walk-away conditions from the pricing guardrails

If every deal needs a unique exception, the offer is not ready. Return `REVISIT OFFER`.

## Step 5: Close and loss

Define closed-won evidence: signed terms, payment, or the repository’s actual commercial instrument.

Define closed-lost evidence: a reason code from the objection map, plus whether the account is dead, recycled, or was never qualified.

Do not leave deals in “verbal yes.”

## Step 6: Desk-test

1. Discovery can end in disqualification.
2. Demo shows the valued job, not the architecture.
3. Negotiation cannot silently violate pricing floors.
4. A new hire can run the same path from the playbook.
5. No step invents proof the product lacks.

Design, do not run, a call-review rubric for the next three live conversations.

## Decision

* `RUN PLAY`: the path may be used on qualified deals
* `RUN NARROWLY`: discovery and demo only
* `HOLD`
* `REVISIT OFFER` or `REVISIT PIPELINE`

Lead with:

“As of [date], a qualified deal for [beachhead] moves through [discovery → demo → plan → close] selling [offer] against [named alternative], with walk-away at [floor], decision [RUN PLAY / RUN NARROWLY / HOLD / REVISIT OFFER / REVISIT PIPELINE].”

## Deliverables

### 1. `docs/gtm/deals.md`

Deal object, discovery guide, demo script, mutual plan, negotiation and walk-away, close/loss codes, desk tests, call-review rubric.

### 2. `docs/gtm/deals.yaml`

`version`, `status`, `decision`, `deal_fields`, `discovery`, `demo`, `mutual_plan`, `negotiation`, `walk_away`, `close_definition`, `loss_codes`, `assumptions`, `unknowns`, `sources`.

`status: playbook`. Do not invent live deals.

### 3. `docs/gtm/deals-changelog.md`

Append only.

## Boundaries

* Do not contact buyers or send proposals.
* Do not invent quotes, discounts, or wins.
* Do not demo roadmap as product.
* Do not close below the pricing floor without naming a subsidy.
* Do not keep unqualified conversations in the deal play.
* Preserve uncertainty.

## Done when

* Discovery, demo, negotiation, and close have evidence requirements.
* Walk-away conditions are explicit.
* Desk tests passed or forced `HOLD`.
* The three files agree and contain no fictional opportunities.