── ── Startups
Ansoff Matrix
Every growth option a firm has falls into one of four quadrants defined by two axes: existing vs. new product, and existing vs. new market. Risk rises as unknowns multiply: selling your existing product to your existing market adds zero unknowns; diversifying (new product + new market) adds two unknowns simultaneously, compounding risk roughly fourfold. The matrix's job is prioritization…
How it works
Produce a Growth Direction Analysis — a completed matrix with mapped options, feasibility scores, and a prioritized growth agenda.
Step 1: Define Current Product-Market Baseline. State what your "existing products" are and who your "existing customers" are. If the team disagrees on what counts as the existing market, resolve that before assigning quadrants.
Step 2: Enumerate Growth Options by Quadrant. At least 3 specific options per quadrant. "Enter Asia" is not an option; "launch English-language SaaS in Japan targeting mid-market manufacturing firms" is.
When to use it
- user says 'where should we grow next', 'should we enter a new market', 'thinking about diversifying', 'new product vs new market', 'growth strategy', 'adjacent expansion', 'Ansoff', or is spreading resources across too many directions at once
When not to use it
When the decision is routine and reversible, applying a formal method costs more than it returns.
Worked example
Amazon's Sequenced Growth (1994–2006)
Amazon's progression from online bookseller to diversified commerce and infrastructure platform is the most thoroughly documented Ansoff-matrix execution in the internet era. The company's annual shareholder letters (Bezos, 1997–2006) provide near-primary-source documentation of the strategic logic at each stage.
Install this skill (free, MIT)
npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skills