The Divine Comedy of Business Planning: Why Market Research and Go-to-Market Strategy Matter More Than Ever
My grandmother once shared some important wisdom with me that’s stuck through the years:
“If you want to give God a belly laugh, make a plan.”
This captures a fundamental truth about entrepreneurship—no plan survives first contact with the market unchanged. But that doesn’t mean we should abandon planning altogether.
Instead, it highlights why thorough market research and a robust go-to-market (GTM) strategy are essential—not as rigid roadmaps, but as living documents that guide us through the inevitable pivots and adjustments every business faces.
The Cost of Flying Blind
In the clinical research industry, I’ve seen countless promising companies stumble—not because their technology wasn’t innovative or their team wasn’t talented, but because they built solutions for problems the market didn’t prioritize or communicated value propositions that didn’t resonate with their intended buyers.
Consider the tech entrepreneur who develops groundbreaking patient recruitment software—only to discover too late that their target customers are more focused on regulatory compliance tools this year, due to shifting sponsor demands.
Or the site network that tries to expand into a new market, only to find it’s already saturated with larger competitors who have preexisting sponsor relationships.
Or the consultant-turned-founder who builds a service offering based on their past experience—only to realize too late that their ideal buyer isn’t the one they’ve been pitching, and the real decision-maker sits three rungs higher in the organization.
These aren’t failures of execution. They’re failures of market understanding.
Market Research: Your Strategic Foundation
Effective market research in our industry goes far beyond surveying potential customers. It requires understanding the complex ecosystem of stakeholders, regulatory pressures, and operational realities that influence decision-making.
Understanding the Buying Journey
Research sites don’t make purchasing decisions in isolation. They’re influenced by sponsor requirements, regulatory changes, staffing limitations, and budget cycles—none of which align neatly with typical B2B timelines.
Vendors need to map these dynamics and time their market entry accordingly.
Identifying Unspoken Pain Points
The most valuable insights often come from observing what customers struggle with—but don’t articulate as needs.
A site network may never ask for better data integration tools, but when you observe how much time they spend manually transferring data between systems, the opportunity becomes clear.
This gap between expressed needs and observed challenges is where your biggest wins lie.
Competitive Landscape Analysis
In clinical research, competition isn’t always obvious. A patient recruitment platform may be competing not just with other tech tools—but with internal recruitment teams, traditional advertising, or even the decision to delay study start-up until a natural patient pool emerges.
Building a Go-to-Market Strategy That Evolves
Your GTM strategy should provide direction—but it must also flex and evolve as you learn from the market.
Channel Strategy for Clinical Research
Direct sales may work for enterprise CRO solutions. But research sites often prefer evaluating solutions through peer recommendations, conference exposure, or referrals from existing vendors.
Tech companies often gain faster traction by partnering with vendors who already have site relationships.
Messaging That Resonates
Clinical research professionals are rightly skeptical. They’ve seen “revolutionary” solutions turn into expensive headaches.
Your messaging should acknowledge that skepticism—and show a deep understanding of their operational realities.
Pricing Strategy Alignment
Your pricing must reflect how your buyers actually budget:
Capital vs. operational expenses
Annual vs. project-based funding
Centralized vs. site-level purchasing authority
Miss those nuances, and you risk pricing yourself out of the conversation.
The Art of Strategic Pivoting
Here’s where my grandmother’s wisdom becomes especially relevant.
The goal isn’t a perfect plan. It’s a deep enough market understanding that you can adjust quickly and intelligently when reality diverges from your expectations.
A friend once told me that we all need to be like cowboys. At first, I didn’t get it—until he explained:
If a cowboy sits too rigid in the saddle, clinching tightly, he’ll end up with saddle sores. But if he rides loosely—flexible, adaptable—he can go longer, farther, and stay healthier.
That’s the entrepreneurial mindset in a nutshell:
Firm in direction. Flexible in the ride.
Recognizing Pivot Signals
Market feedback might show that your solution solves a real problem—but for a different customer segment. A product designed for large CROs might be a better fit for mid-sized site networks.
The key is maintaining enough awareness to spot these shifts—and adjust accordingly.
Iterating Without Losing Focus
Not all feedback warrants a pivot. Successful teams develop frameworks for separating individual customer requests from market-level signals that justify a strategic shift.
Making God Laugh—Productively
My grandmother’s wisdom wasn’t a rejection of planning—it was a reminder to hold your plans lightly while taking market research seriously.
In clinical research—where regulations, technology, and partnerships are constantly evolving—this mindset is more than strategic. It’s necessary.
The companies that thrive aren’t the ones with perfect initial plans. They’re the ones who invest deeply in understanding their market and build the capacity to iterate rapidly, intelligently, and with purpose.
Use your go-to-market strategy as a hypothesis—then test and refine it. When market feedback forces a shift in your positioning, pricing, or target customer, don’t treat it as failure. Treat it as market education.
The goal isn’t to avoid giving God a laugh. It’s to make sure that when the laughter comes, you’re in on the joke—and positioned to adapt without missing a beat.
In clinical research, where the stakes include patient outcomes and scientific progress, that kind of humility and responsiveness isn’t just smart. It’s a responsibility.