Decision-first artifacts.

Decision Build a Gen Z-first wedding-venue discovery platform that replaces hidden pricing and PDF brochures with transparent inventory, aesthetic matching, and self-serve tours. Problem statement The wedding venue booking experience in 2025 is fundamentally broken for Gen Z brides. Research across 13 AI-moderated bride interviews, multi-stage surveys, and behavioral studies revealed a fragmented digital journey: - Gen Z brides plan smaller weddings under $30,000 and operate on mixed funding models. - They are digital-first decision-makers who demand transparency, aesthetic inspiration, and frictionless workflows. - 92% eliminate venues with poor digital interfaces. - 85% demand upfront, transparent pricing the industry refuses to provide. - Venue owners lack the digital capabilities to engage this generation effectively. Opportunity & rationale (TAM / SAM / SOM) TAM: $1.1B — 300,000 US wedding vendors × $3,726 average annual spend on marketing and booking platforms. SAM: $17.5M — ~135,000 digitally-native couples × 5 venue tours each × $26/tour. SOM: $2.5M Y1 → $25M Y3 — addressable via a sales-led motion targeting 1,400 venue partners. 83% of Gen Z couples actively penalize venues for outdated websites and a lack of transparency. The market opening is not a preference shift — it is a generational expectation. Solution overview A two-sided marketplace built around three primitives: 1. Aesthetic discovery — Pinterest-board import → AI-curated venue match. 2. Transparent inventory — real-time availability, all-in pricing, filter by budget / capacity. 3. Self-serve tour booking — a Gen Z bride's journey: discover → tour → contract without phone tag. Customer use case A Gen Z bride discovers the marketplace through a friend's TikTok, uploads her Pinterest board, and instantly sees a curated list of "charming outdoor" venues matching her capacity, budget, and date range. She books three tours in 20 minutes — no cold-emailing, no PDF brochures, no callbacks. Competitive landscape - Incumbent directory marketplaces — pay-to-play SEO, no real inventory data. - Adjacent wedding-planning platforms — weak venue inventory in tier-2 metros. - Social platforms — discovery without booking; high drop-off at the DM step. Unique differentiators: real inventory + transparent pricing + aesthetic-first match. None of the incumbents combine all three. Strategic edge — why now, why us - Gen Z is the dominant wedding-spend cohort by 2026. - Vibe-coded prototype already validates the aesthetic-match flow. - Founder ran 50+ hours of bride interviews; product is grounded in observed pain, not assumed. Business case Y1 target: $2.5M ARR via 2 AEs each carrying $1.25M quota (~700 venue partners per AE). Cost per qualified tour request: $26. North-star: tour-to-contract conversion rate, tracked obsessively by venue and aggregate. Measurement plan (KPIs) - Tour Completion Rate. - Tour-to-Contract Conversion Rate (per venue + aggregate) — north star. - Venue mobile-app adoption. - Cost per qualified tour request (target $26). Implementation plan Q1–Q2: MVP development + launch (2-week sprints, 100-venue pilot cohort). Q3: Onboarding funnel optimization + venue analytics; A/B test premium tiers. Q4: Hit target, prep for scale; revenue model expansion. Governance & operating rhythm Founder + 2 AEs + 4-person engineering team. Weekly exec review on tour-to-contract conversion and pilot venue NPS. Quarterly board review on ARR pacing vs. $2.5M target. Next steps 1. Secure pilot venue partnerships (100 venues). 2. Finalize go-to-market for AE hires. 3. Lock funding round against this vision. Why this matters This is more than a vision document. It is a strategic blueprint that merges product, business case, and metrics into a single artifact a board, an exec team, and an engineering org can all execute against.