Beachhead Segment Scorer

A free tool for founders choosing the one market segment to win first: an industry, a company size, a grade level or a subject. You list two to ten candidate segments and score each 1 to 5 on pain, reach, budget, competition and proof against a written rubric, with one line of evidence behind each score where you have it. The scorer picks one, explains why the runner-up lost, and says whether the choice is settled or still rests on assumptions.

The rubric

• Pain: 1 is a nice-to-have nobody raised; 3 is a known problem with a workaround; 5 is urgent, budgeted, searched for and raised unprompted.
• Reach: 1 is no list or channel to reach them; 3 is reachable through paid channels at an unknown cost; 5 is a named list, shared communities or events, and warm introductions.
• Budget: 1 is no one owning a budget for it; 3 is a budget that competes with other priorities; 5 is a budget owner who can sign at your price.
• Competition: 1 is an entrenched leader and a costly switch; 3 is alternatives with clear gaps; 5 is no good alternative, only spreadsheets and workarounds.
• Proof: 1 is no conversations with the segment yet; 3 is interviews or a pilot; 5 is paying customers and references there.

What it does with the scores

Each score becomes 0 to 100 and the segment's score is the weighted average, with equal weights unless you change them. A 1 on any criterion rules a segment out, unless you turn that rule off. With each segment's number of reachable buyers and yearly contract value, it shows the share of the segment your revenue target needs, and rules out any segment too small for the target. It then shows how many points of the gap between the pick and the runner-up each criterion accounts for. It doubles and halves each weight in turn to see whether the pick keeps its lead, a tie counting as a loss, and lowers the pick's scores that have no evidence by one point to see whether it still wins.

A pick is clear only if it leads by at least 10 points out of 100, passes both checks, and has evidence for at least 3 of its 5 scores. Otherwise it is leaning, and the tool names the one piece of evidence to get next. A tie at the top is never a pick. The rubric, the 10-point margin and the 3-of-5 rule are AAJ's, not industry benchmarks. The beachhead idea itself comes from Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm.

Why I ask for evidence, not just scores

It's tempting to pick the biggest or the most exciting market first. Scoring helps, but a score of 4 on budget can mean a signed contract or a hunch, and a spreadsheet can't tell them apart. So I'd rather every score carry one line of evidence, and the tool test how much the choice leans on the scores that don't. A pick that only wins on hunches isn't wrong; it's unfinished.

Limits

• The scores are yours. The tool can't check them; it flags the ones with no evidence and tests how much the pick depends on them.
• The size check only rules out segments too small for your target. It does not reward the biggest.
• The checks change one weight at a time and lower unevidenced scores by one point. A pick that passes can still be wrong if the evidenced scores are wrong.

The same engine runs as an agent skill, beachhead-segment-selection. To size the segment you pick, use the Bottom-Up Market Sizer. To position for it, use the Positioning Statement Generator. To test the channel that reaches it, use the Channel Test Budget Calculator.

Run this in your agent

The free AAJ agent skill Beachhead Segment Selection does this job inside a coding agent, on your own data. Install it with npx skills add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skills --skill beachhead-segment-selection.

Using Claude or ChatGPT instead? Add the AAJ engines as a custom connector, with no install: https://aaj-engines-mcp.sarojkjha10.workers.dev/mcp