{"api":{"name":"api.sb","description":"Business-as-Code surface for Startups.Studio","home":"https://api.sb","docs":"https://api.sb/docs","version":"1.0.0"},"$context":"https://api.sb/$context","$type":"FoundingHypothesis","$id":"https://api.sb/founding-hypotheses/fh%3Aw4-518210-buying-decision%3Av1","links":{"self":"https://api.sb/v1/founding-hypotheses/fh%3Aw4-518210-buying-decision%3Av1","canonical":"https://api.sb/founding-hypotheses/fh%3Aw4-518210-buying-decision%3Av1","pool":"https://api.sb/v1/founding-hypotheses"},"foundingHypothesis":{"id":"fh:w4-518210-buying-decision:v1","lens":"AIService","type":"founding-hypothesis","click":{"rubricScores":{"C8_lensFit":1,"C7_magicLensFit":1,"C4_competitorHonesty":1,"C6_crossSlotCoherence":1,"C1_customerSpecificity":1,"C2_problemFrictionRealism":1,"C9_killCriteriaAttestability":1,"C3_approachEngineCoverability":1,"C5_differentiationLoservilleEscape":1},"upperRightLoserville":true},"cellRef":{"id":"work-contexts.org.ai/w4-518210-buying-decision","stableHash":"wcc:w4:518210:buying-decision:v1"},"problem":{"slotStatement":"Platform teams evaluating data-processing and hosting vendors drown in sales-engineering decks, apples-to-oranges pricing calculators, and benchmark claims they cannot independently verify, so the buying decision stalls for months and defaults to whichever incumbent the CTO already trusts."},"approach":{"oneSentence":"An AI service that ingests the buyer's actual workload traces, RFP responses, and vendor SKUs and produces a scored, side-by-side vendor comparison with a traceable record linking every claim back to the source contract clause, benchmark run, or pricing sheet."},"customer":{"icpShape":"Series B–D SaaS and data-intensive scaleups (headcount 200–1500) in North America running on AWS/GCP/Azure, where the buyer is the VP of Infrastructure or CFO approving the annual cloud-hosting commit and the daily user is the Staff Platform Engineer or FinOps lead evaluating vendor proposals.","beachheadShape":"EarlyMajorityWorkflow: scaleup platform teams running a formal hosting/data-processing vendor reselection every 12–24 months under board-mandated cloud-cost review."},"archetype":"startup-archetypes.org.ai/AIService-MoneyOnDelivery","beachhead":"EarlyMajorityWorkflow: scaleup platform teams running a formal hosting/data-processing vendor reselection every 12–24 months under board-mandated cloud-cost review.","competitors":{"substitutes":[{"name":"Gartner Magic Quadrant + analyst inquiry calls","category":"incumbent"},{"name":"ChatGPT / Claude ad-hoc vendor comparison prompts","category":"AI-native horizontal"},{"name":"In-house platform-engineer-built spreadsheet bake-off","category":"status-quo"},{"name":"Vendr / Tropic procurement negotiation services","category":"adjacent vertical"}]},"studioThesis":"T-AIS-LOW-TECH","killThreshold":{"K":8,"M":30,"N":7,"rubricItemSet":["C1_customerSpecificity","C2_problemFrictionRealism","C3_approachEngineCoverability","C4_competitorHonesty","C5_differentiationLoservilleEscape","C6_crossSlotCoherence","C7_magicLensFit","C8_lensFit","C9_killCriteriaAttestability"],"verdictPolicy":"all-load-bearing-pass-and-overall-ge-X","loadBearingItemSet":["C1_customerSpecificity","C2_problemFrictionRealism","C3_approachEngineCoverability","C4_competitorHonesty","C5_differentiationLoservilleEscape","C6_crossSlotCoherence"],"verdictPolicyVerbatim":"KILL unless every load-bearing rubric item passes per workbook AND overall pass-rate ≥ 7/9 (CASCADE.md §4 Stage 9 commit threshold)."},"lifecycleState":"Active","differentiation":{"twoByTwo":{"xAxis":"Evidence provenance (every comparison claim linked to a specific source artifact: contract clause, benchmark log, pricing SKU)","yAxis":"Fit to the buyer's actual workload shape (ingests the team's own traces/bills vs. generic vendor-category rubric)","winningQuadrant":"High provenance + workload-specific: a review-ready vendor decision memo the CFO and VP Infra can both audit, with each cost and performance claim clickable to its source and scored against the buyer's own traffic profile.","loservilleEscape":true,"loservilleQuadrant":"Low provenance + generic rubric: ChatGPT ad-hoc prompts that hallucinate pricing tiers and Gartner quadrants that rank vendors on abstract criteria unrelated to the buyer's actual egress patterns or Spark job mix — neither can cite where a number came from, and neither has seen the buyer's workload."}},"unmetRequirements":[],"pricingArchitecture":"usage-meter"},"actions":{},"options":{},"relationships":{"runtimeUnit":"https://api.sb/v1/runtime-units?startupRef=startup%3Afh%3Aw4-518210-buying-decision%3Av1","brand":"https://api.sb/v1/brands?startupId=startup%3Afh%3Aw4-518210-buying-decision%3Av1","listing":"https://api.services/listings?foundingHypothesisRef=fh%3Aw4-518210-buying-decision%3Av1","cell":"https://api.sb/v1/cells/work-contexts.org.ai/w4-518210-buying-decision","thesis":"https://api.sb/v1/theses/T-AIS-LOW-TECH"},"meta":{"level":"L0","scopes":[]},"user":{"requestId":"a0575a7f78b50555","edgeLocation":"a0575a7f78b50555","geo":{"country":"US"},"ua":{"browser":"Claude"}},"references":{"total":0,"limit":25,"page":1,"links":{"self":"https://api.sb/v1/founding-hypotheses/fh%3Aw4-518210-buying-decision%3Av1/references"},"items":[]}}