Weighted Strategic Decision Matrix
Score strategic options on weighted criteria set before scoring, with evidence per score, a sensitivity test, and a revisit trigger.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
That's a big decision. There are pros and cons to both approaches. Acquiring them would give you their customer base and their product, but you'd have to integrate everything, deal with culture differences, and pay a premium. Building in-house would be cheaper and give you more control, but it takes time and resources, and you might miss the market window. You could also consider a partnership or licensing deal. To make this decision, you'd want to think about your timeline, your budget, your team capacity, and how strategic the feature is to your product roadmap. What's your current situation—are you concerned about a competitive threat, or are you trying to fill a gap in your product?
STRATEGIC DECISION FRAMEWORK: ACQUIRE vs BUILD DECISION CONTEXT (what are we actually choosing?) → Option A: Acquire competitor (all-in cost: 4M purchase + 6 months integration, 15% churn risk) → Option B: Build feature in-house (all-in cost: 8 person-months, 12-month timeline to feature parity) → Option C (escape hatch): License their tech (royalty model, lower control) → Implicit constraint: We must decide by Sept 30 (their CFO timeline) TRADEFF ANALYSIS CUSTOMER ACQUISITION (Option A wins) → Their 420 customers: 60% overlap with us (likely churn), 40% net-new. → Net new customer value: 40% × 420 × 8K ARR = 1.3M first-year revenue uplift → Build timeline: 12 months to feature parity. Lost opportunity = 6 months of that competitor still taking net-new deals. → Swing: Acquisition accelerates revenue 6 months (worth 200K-300K in NPV terms) RISK PROFILE (diametrically opposed) → Acquire risk: Integration complexity (their DB schema incompatible with ours; rebuild forecast: +3 months). Cultural integration. Customer churn post-acquisition (we've seen 12-15% in past deals). Founder vesting + retention bonus = key-person risk. → Build risk: Timeline slip (8-person-month is optimistic; assume +25% buffer). Market window closes (if competitor ships 3 major features, we're disadvantaged). CRITICAL FACTS YOU MUST HAVE → What's their actual churn rate? (You have: none. Get it before deciding.) → How much of their tech can we actually reuse? (Engineering assessment required: 2-day spike) → What's the revenue threshold where acquisition pays for itself? (4M cost / 8K per-customer ARR = 500 customers to break even; they have 420 → only marginally profitable) RECOMMENDATION (with contingencies) → CONDITIONAL BUILD: If their churn rate is 5%+, build in-house (customer retention value too high post-acquisition). Build costs 50K more than acquire, but churn risk eats that premium. → CONDITIONAL ACQUIRE: If their churn is sub-3% AND we can reuse 60%+ of tech, acquire (speed to market + customer base worth it). → GET DATA NOW: 1-week engineering assessment + 1-week churn diligence. Then decide.
About this skill
A decision matrix can settle a disagreement or quietly launder someone's favorite answer. This skill builds one that is fair and checkable: criteria and weights agreed first, every score backed by evidence, and a test of whether the winner holds up.
What it does
- Includes an honest do-nothing baseline and removes options that break hard constraints
- Fixes non-overlapping criteria, written 1-5 scales, and weights before any scoring
- Anchors every score to a fact or a labeled assumption
- Runs a sensitivity check and calls the result robust or fragile
- Recommends one option with its load-bearing assumption and a dated revisit trigger
What you get
A criteria table, a scored matrix with arithmetic shown, a sensitivity result, a recommendation, downside and reversibility, and the revisit condition.
Best for
Leadership teams choosing between market entries, pricing models, restructures, or build-vs-partner options, especially when people disagree.
SKILL.md preview
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name: strategic-decision-making
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