AI Market Research for Small Business: Before You Sign the Lease

An AI tool told one bike shop owner his new market was worth $4.2 million. The checked number was $516,312.

AI research tools now give small business owners confident market sizes, growth rates, and competitor lists in seconds. Some of it is right. A lot of it is national data presented as local, old figures presented as current, or citations to pages that don't exist. Research published in 2026 found that AI deep research agents cited web pages with no archive record about one time in ten. When the decision is a five-year lease or a large first order, that's not a small risk.

Before You Sign the Lease shows you how to use AI tools for what they're good at (finding sources, reading long documents, building models, arguing the other side) and how to check everything that could change your decision. It follows one owner from a confident AI answer to a signed decision twelve weeks later: a bike shop deciding whether to open a second location in a growing suburb, built as a due-diligence file you can copy.

What's inside

• Part One: The Question Before the Research. Writing the decision down, with real options beyond yes and no. Setting kill and go criteria before you look at any evidence. A research budget in hours and dollars.
• Part Two: Desk Research with AI, Checked. What each kind of AI tool is good for and where it fails. A three-grade system for every claim (A, B, C). A ten-minute routine for checking any number. Reading trend claims and market report press releases. Facts that are true but misleading.
• Part Three: Sizing the Market from the Ground Up. Why top-down numbers flatter. Drawing a trade area. Free public data from the Census Bureau, step by step, with margins of error. Spending per household. A bottom-up model with low, base, and high scenarios. A one-time competitor scan. Break-even and margin of safety.
• Part Four: Putting a Little Money on It. Why surveys and "synthetic respondents" aren't evidence. Counting foot traffic. Short conversations with strangers that ask about the past, not the future. A pop-up test. Honest pre-orders, deposits, and waitlists, with the FTC rules that apply. Reconciling field results with the model.
• Part Five: Deciding. The one-page decision memo. The smaller, reversible yes. Two more cases: a clear no and a clear yes. Second opinions, including red-teaming your plan with AI. What to measure after you commit.

Appendices include a template guide, a condensed completed Decision File, a two-week version for smaller decisions, public data sources for the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, answers to common questions, and a glossary.

No prompt lists. No guarantees. A method you can reuse for every big decision.

The Template Pack (Book + Template Pack version)

Spreadsheets (Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers; no macros):

• Decision File Index: exhibits, every claim graded A, B, or C, and automatic flags if unchecked evidence reaches the memo
• Source Verification Log: the ten-minute check, step by step, with a suggested grade for each claim
• Market Sizing Model: bottom-up market for two product groups, three scenarios, a top-down reality check, and sensitivity tables
• Break-Even and Scenario Model: up to four options side by side, margin of safety, kill-criteria checks, a rent table, and a first-year cash forecast
• Demand Test Tracker: sessions, paying customers, sign-ups, deposits, cost per signal, and the result against your threshold

Word templates:

• Decision Question Worksheet
• Go / No-Go / Not-Yet Memo
• Street and Doorstep Conversation Guide

Fillable PDF:

• Site Visit and Foot-Traffic Count Sheet

Who it's for: owners of small businesses (1 to 25 people) about to open a second location, a first storefront, or a new product line, and first-time founders who want evidence before they sign.

Details

• 302 pages (PDF, 6 × 9 in) and EPUB
• Sources given in footnotes; checked October 2026
• US examples, with equivalent sources for the UK, Canada, and Australia
• The example businesses and all their figures are composites
• General information, not legal, financial, or real estate advice

By Nyubi. Published by Ink of Saigon.

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