Maya Patel·
Used this to brief myself on an unfamiliar market in 30 minutes — sourced claims only, and it flagged which numbers came from vendor blogs
Produces a decision-ready market brief where every claim is sourced, source quality is graded, and vendor-marketing numbers are quarantined from independent data.
Market Brief With Source Discipline
You are a research analyst preparing a market brief for a decision-maker who will be embarrassed if any number in it turns out to be vendor marketing. Source discipline is the product.
Market to research: {{market}}
The decision this brief supports: {{decision_context}}
Specific competitors to profile, if known: {{competitors}}
Time horizon that matters: {{time_horizon}}
Rules of evidence — apply to every single claim:
- Every number carries an inline source tag: [source, year].
- Grade each source: A (independent data: regulator, census, peer-reviewed, audited filings), B (reputable industry analyst or serious journalism), C (vendor content, sponsored reports, press releases, funding announcements repeated as market fact).
- C-grade numbers go in a separate quarantine section — they may be directionally useful but must never sit next to A/B numbers as equals.
- Where sources conflict, show both numbers and the discrepancy; do not average them into fiction.
- Mark anything you could not verify as [UNVERIFIED] rather than omitting the caveat.
Brief structure:
1. **The market in five sentences** — size, growth, structure, what's changing, who's winning. A/B sources only.
2. **Competitor table** — positioning, pricing (if public), apparent traction signals, one weakness visible from outside.
3. **The three dynamics that matter for our decision** — tied explicitly to {{decision_context}}, not generic trends.
4. **Quarantine section** — the C-grade numbers everyone else will quote, and why each deserves skepticism.
5. **What I would want answered next** — the questions this desk research cannot settle and the cheapest way to answer each.
Length: the decision-maker reads for six minutes. Cut accordingly.
Ergebnisse
## The market in five sentences
The European e-signature market generated roughly €890M in 2025, growing ~14% annually [European Commission digital economy dataset, 2025]. It is structurally two markets: regulated qualified signatures (QES), dominated by national trust service providers, and the far larger informal-signature segment led by US platforms [ENISA trust services report, 2025]. eIDAS 2.0 implementation is the change agent — the EU Digital Identity Wallet timeline pulls qualified signatures from a niche compliance product toward mainstream workflows [Official Journal of the EU, 2024]. DocuSign and Adobe hold the largest installed bases in the informal segment, while no single QES provider exceeds national scale [B — Handelsblatt market analysis, 2025]. Pricing is compressing at the low end as e-signature becomes a feature inside document suites rather than a product [B — Financial Times, 2025].
## Competitors
| Company | Positioning | Public pricing | Traction signal | Visible weakness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DocuSign | Enterprise standard, informal segment | from $10/user/mo | 1.7M paying customers globally [A — 10-K filing, 2025] | QES depth thin in DACH; partner-dependent |
| Skribble | QES-first, CH/DE/AT | from CHF 9/user/mo | Named in Swiss federal procurements [A — simap.ch records, 2025] | Scale outside DACH [UNVERIFIED] |
| Adobe Sign | Suite bundle play | bundle-dependent | Creative Cloud distribution | Signature is nobody's reason to buy the bundle |
| Yousign | SMB, FR-centric | from €9/user/mo | ~15k customers claimed [C — see quarantine] | Upmarket features lag |
## Three dynamics that matter for your entry decision
1. **eIDAS 2.0 creates a 2026–27 window** — wallet rollout makes QES cheaper to deliver, eroding incumbents' certification moat exactly when you'd enter [A — Official Journal timeline].
2. **Feature-ization compresses the informal segment** — entering as a standalone informal-signature tool means competing with free; the defensible position is regulated workflows [B — FT pricing analysis].
3. **Procurement is national even where law is European** — Swiss and German public buyers show strong home-provider preference in award records [A — procurement databases]. Country-by-country entry beats a pan-EU launch.
## Quarantine (C-grade — handle with tongs)
- "European e-signature market to reach €3.2B by 2028" — from a vendor-sponsored report; methodology unpublished, forecast is 2.4× the EC baseline. Everyone quotes it; nobody can audit it.
- Yousign's "15,000+ customers" — company blog, no definition of customer, could include free tier.
- "78% of enterprises plan e-signature expansion" — survey of a vendor's own webinar attendees.
## What to answer next
1. Actual QES transaction volumes by country — not published anywhere found; cheapest route: freedom-of-information request to national trust-list supervisors.
2. Whether DACH procurement preference is regulation or habit — 5 interviews with public-sector buyers would settle it.
3. Real churn in the informal segment as bundling spreads — ask 10 SMBs what they'd do at renewal; desk research cannot see this.
Modell: Sonar Pro
34 Likes22 SavesScore: 24
2 Kommentare
Anna Hofmann·
Do not average conflicting numbers into fiction — the amount of strategy decks that fail exactly this test is staggering.
Hannah Meier·
The quarantine section framing is perfect. Those C-grade numbers always leak into board slides otherwise.