S2: Make information usable

English edition. S1–S6 are available in English; S7–S9 are published in Japanese.

Choose where you raise your voice. Don’t burn out where there’s no demand.

On this page

• What you get from this skill
• Why it matters
• Copy-paste path
• The core: break your own frame
• Step 1: put yourself and your company into words
• Step 2: turn any source into structured knowledge
• Step 3: market research through your Ontology
• Step 4: integrate and find the gap
• Step 5: choose the market and plan the moves
• Capstone: a three-year business plan
• Are you done?

What you get from this skill

1. A base of outside knowledge (research/) — articles, books, videos, competitor sites, and public data, stored not as bookmarks and screenshots but as Markdown files the AI can read and cross-reference.
2. A market and a target chosen with data — your skills redefined beyond your job title, and a specific place where money is already moving. Where, to whom, and with what you compete.

S1 built your own map. S2 builds the map of the outside world that plugs into it. The capstone pulls everything together into a three-year business plan.

Why it matters

People who pick the wrong market usually trip in one of two places.

① Information is scattered in unusable form. Articles in browser tabs, competitor screenshots in your camera roll, sticky notes in books. However much you collect, you can’t decide with it. Ask an AI “what do you think of this market?” without structured data behind it and you get the same generic answer everyone gets.

② The market is chosen by feel. “There seems to be demand.” “I like this.” Then nobody pays. Markets are chosen by where money actually flows.

S2 fixes both at once: take in information and structure it, then choose the market from that data.

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Copy-paste path: the shortest route through S2

Paste these into your AI agent one at a time, in order. Replace everything in 【brackets】 first. Read what comes back and correct it before moving on. The reasoning is in Steps 1–5 below.

① Add the folders

In myproject, create research/ with sources/, market/, competitors/, and analysis/ inside.
Don't create any files yet.

② Collect how the outside world sees you (Step 1 · only if you work under your real name)

Search the web for "【your name / company name】" and summarize what's publicly visible about me as structured knowledge. Save it to research/sources/.
- How I or my business are described
- What's written about my strengths or expertise
- Achievements, background, affiliations that appear
- Always include source URLs. Mark anything you can't verify as "unverified."

③ Pull your intentions out of the inbox (Step 1)

Read every note in inbox/ and extract my "intentions as an owner and life plan":
- What I want to achieve with this business
- Where I want the company in three years (grow / hold steady / hand over / sell)
- How long and how deeply I want to stay involved
- What matters most in my life (time, family, money, community)
Add this to the "Intentions and life plan" section of ontology/people/【Your Name】 (me).md. Don't add anything I didn't write.

④ Talk through your skills and put yourself on one page (Step 1)

I'm going to describe my experience and skills. Organize them in ontology/people/【Your Name】 (me).md.
When I finish, ask me: "Which of these can most people NOT do?" and "Which would surprise someone outside your industry?"

【years of experience · what you're good at, with numbers/examples · what you're bad at · credentials and your own methods · results · time, cash, and risk you can put into the business】

⑤ Put your company on one page (Step 1)

Read our website (【URL】) and the documents I'll give you, and summarize the company on one page in ontology/organizations/【Company】 (my company).md:
purpose and where we want to be in 3 years / what we do and our main offers / main customers and their problems / revenue mix / financial overview / size and team (names and roles only) / workflow and bottlenecks / company assets, kept separate from my personal skills / key suppliers and partners / main business risks
Fill in what you can. Cite sources. Mark guesses as "unverified."

⑥ Take in one source at a time (Step 2 · every time you find something worth keeping)

(attach a URL, PDF, or image) Turn this into structured knowledge:
1. Save it in research/sources/ (source, date captured, summary, what it means for me, key quotes)
2. Reflect related ideas in ontology/concepts/ (new file if it's a new topic)
3. Add the connections to ontology/relations/links.json
Check numbers against the original. Mark anything you can't verify as "unverified."

⑦ Run a 3C analysis (Step 3)

Read research/ plus ontology/organizations/【Company】 (my company).md and ontology/people/【Your Name】 (me).md, then do a 3C analysis of "【market】 in 【city/region】":
- Customer: who they are and what they struggle with
- Competitor: strengths and weaknesses of each company in competitors/
- Company: our company's strengths and my personal strengths, kept separate
End with the single move this analysis says I should make. Save to research/analysis/3c.md.

Prompts for PEST, Five Forces, and TAM/SAM/SOM are in Step 3.

⑧ Integrate and find the gap (Step 4)

Read all of research/ and put the following into research/analysis/integrated-map.md:
1. A competitor comparison table (price range, target, value delivered)
2. A market map (who sells to which segment, at what price)
3. Gaps where money is moving but nobody is serving the need yet

⑨ Choose the market and plan the moves (Step 5)

Read research/analysis/integrated-map.md, 3c.md, and ontology/.
Propose one market to compete in, and a specific target (region, size, situation). Say which data decided it.
Once I choose, save it to research/analysis/entry-strategy.md.

Then write research/analysis/action-plan.md from the entry strategy:
first move / what to do in 90 days, 6 months, 1 year / milestones / resources needed and bottlenecks / an optimistic and a pessimistic scenario

Finish with the capstone: the three-year business plan.

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The core: break your own frame

Before choosing a market, one thing matters more than any technique: break your own frame of perception, and look from outside it.

Expertise quietly locks you into your profession’s “social shape”:

• Restaurant owner → “How do I make my restaurant popular?”
• Lawyer → “Which firm do I join, or how do I run mine?”
• Designer → “Which clients do I get work from?”

As long as you think like that, you move only inside the role your industry defined. A restaurant owner who instead says “I can design food experiences” can look for the market where that ability pays most — consulting for other restaurants, a local food brand, corporate catering. That question never comes up inside “how do I fill my tables?”

Your S1 Ontology is the weapon here. Lay out your expertise, experience, and values as concepts — stripped of job titles — and you see what you can actually do at a completely different resolution.

[Before: through the job title]
Restaurant owner → market = restaurants

[After: through your Ontology]
"I can design food experiences"
"I can build places people gather"
"I can put kitchen prep into words"
"I'm deeply connected to the local community"
  ↓
More possible markets
(consulting for restaurants / online cooking courses / local branding …)
  ↓
Pick the one you can win ← the goal of S2

S2 picks one main battlefield. Running several markets at once is S4’s subject. Whether your chosen market is real gets tested with outside information, which is what the method is for.

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The method: take in, structure, decide

Five steps: yourself and your company (Step 1), the outside world (Steps 2–4), then the decision (Step 5). The new folder is research/:

myproject/
  ├── inbox/
  ├── ontology/
  ├── actionlog/
  └── research/          ← new in S2
        ├── sources/         what you took in (articles, books, videos as summary files)
        ├── market/          market size and trend research
        ├── competitors/     one competitor per file
        └── analysis/        gaps, market choice, entry strategy, action plan

Step 1: put yourself and your company into words

You describe two things: ① yourself and ② your company. The most important part is drawing a clear line between them in the Ontology.

Your skills and your company’s assets are different things. Mix them, and the AI can’t tell what’s your ability and what’s the company’s brand. Change jobs, go independent — you come with you. So they live in separate files: you in people/, the company in organizations/.

Tip: use real names, not “me.md.” Name the files Jane Smith (me).md and Smith Landscaping (my company).md. When the Ontology holds dozens of people and organizations and you run a big analysis, agents easily lose track of who the owner is. A real name plus “(me)” keeps the subject fixed.

Who you are, from the outside. If you work under your own name, there’s already public information about you: your website, interviews, talks, social posts, reviews. That’s you as seen from outside. It rarely matches how you see yourself — and the gap is often a market signal. “Something I treat as obvious is what others praise me for.” Collect it (prompt ②). If almost nothing comes up, that’s data too: you’re not visible yet, which is exactly what S3 is for. If you’d rather not use your real name online, skip this part.

Who you are, from the inside — starting with intentions. Don’t ask the AI to “write my vision.” You’ll get a generic one. Your real intentions are already spilling out in your S1 inbox/. Pull them from there (prompt ③). If the inbox is thin, record ten minutes about “what I want this business to do” first, then extract.

Then skills and experience. Your own skills are hard to see from inside. “Anyone can do this” is often something almost nobody can. Talk concretely:

"I've run a restaurant for ten years. I designed the whole prep workflow myself
and keep food cost under 28%. With three staff we've served 100 lunches in a shift.
I know most of the shop owners on our street."

Cover: experience and years; what you’re good at, with numbers; what you avoid; credentials and your own methods; results; and the resources you can put in — time, your own cash, and how much risk you can take. Then let the AI ask you back what’s rare (prompt ④).

Ask next: who needs this skill? “List industries and roles that need this, including outside my industry.” “Here are people I know — who might this help?” At this stage, naming people from memory is enough. A full people database is built in S6; come back and rerun this later and the matches get much sharper.

Your company on one page. Collect what the company has, including things that matter in later skills:

What to collect	Examples	Used again in
Purpose and vision	mission, where you want to be in 3 years	S1
Offers	what you sell, the value	S2, S4
Customers	who they are, their problems	S2, S3
Revenue mix	by customer and product, dependence on big accounts, repeat rate	S5
Finances	revenue, costs, margins, cash flow, debt, multi-year trend	S5
Team	size, key people (names and roles only)	S6
Workflow	how work flows, bottlenecks	S6
Assets	equipment, brand, location, licenses — separate from your skills	S2
Relationships	key suppliers and partners	S6
Risks	staffing, succession, aging equipment, cash	S5, S6

Fill in what you know; the file grows as you go (prompt ⑤).

Tip: never mix “me” and “the company.” “Ten years of field experience” is yours — it leaves with you. “A corner location by the station” is the company’s. Kept apart, you can assess your own market value and the company’s position separately — and reuse “me” if you ever start something new.

These two files are the base for every later step.

Step 2: turn any source into structured knowledge

This is the core skill of S2: turn articles, books, videos, competitor sites, and images into structured-knowledge files and connect them to your Ontology.

What “structured knowledge” means: not just a summary. A file with ① the source (who, when, where), ② the key points, ③ what it means for you, and ④ links to related concepts. A note is for you to remember; structured knowledge is for the AI to use across everything else. That’s why sources and links are non-negotiable.

Source	How to bring it in
Books (recommended)	scan the pages with your phone (most cloud-drive apps have a scan mode) and hand over the file
Articles and news	give the URL
Public data	give the URL or PDF — or just ask the agent to research it
Videos	give the transcript / captions
Competitor sites	give the URL; extract services, pricing, target
Images and paper	photos or scans
Social posts	collect high-engagement posts; analyze what’s landing

You don’t have to find public data yourself:

Research the latest on staff shortages and wages in the restaurant industry in 【region】, and any grants or incentive programs we could use. Focus on government and official sources, cite everything, and save it as structured knowledge.

One instruction does it all. Splitting “summarize” and “connect” into two steps is where people stall. Hand over the source and, in one go, have the agent save the knowledge file and connect it (prompt ⑥). A saved file looks like this:

---
source: Small restaurants and AI booking tools
url: https://example.com/article
type: article
captured: 2026-10-12
tags: [restaurants, booking, AI adoption]
---

## Summary
- Most independent restaurants still take bookings by phone or on paper
- One case: an AI booking tool saved 15 hours a month
- The main barrier is setup, not technology

## What it means for me
- Someone who "knows the kitchen and can set up the software" can bridge the gap
- The product may be setup + onboarding, not the tool itself

## Quote (with source)
> The top reason owners gave up on booking software: "couldn't figure out the setup" (44%)

Books are the best input. A book is a structured body of tested thinking, not fragments. Scan the chapters you need, run the one-shot instruction, read the result, and immediately put it to work:

Using the book knowledge you just took in:
- Through this book's framework, where are the gaps in my market?
- Which of the author's claims apply directly to my business, and which don't?
- How does this connect to ontology/people/【Your Name】 (me).md?

Tip: verify AI summaries against the original. AI can blend old knowledge or guesses into a convincing summary. Check numbers and facts at the source; mark what you can’t check as “unverified.” A file without a source is noise.

Tip: don’t separate collecting from structuring. Right after reading is when you understand a source best. “Save fifty articles now, structure later” leaves a pile you never read. A few good sources per theme, each fully connected.

Step 3: market research through your Ontology

For most people, S2 research isn’t about finding a brand-new market. It’s about sharpening the business you already run — where, for whom, and with what.

“Research through your Ontology” means one thing: every time you ask, have the AI read your (me) and (my company) files too. “Research this market” returns a textbook. The same request with your own files attached returns “here’s where your strengths fit in that flow of money.”

S2 stops at optimizing your core business. Expanding into adjacent models — media, education, consulting around your core — is S4.

Base data (saved in research/market/ and research/competitors/):

Topic	Ask	Save to
Market size	”Size and growth of the 【market】 in 【country/region】, with sources”	market/
Competitors	”Main players in 【category】 with prices and business models”	competitors/
Local landscape	”Businesses offering 【service】 in 【city】“	market/
Trends	”Fastest-growing services in 【industry】 over the last two years”	market/
Money flow	”In 【market】, who pays whom, and for what?”	market/
Grants and programs	”Grants, tax credits, and programs for 【industry】 in 【region】, with requirements and deadlines”	market/
Costs and labor	”Trends in materials, wages, energy, and interest rates for 【industry】“	market/
Benchmarks	”How the leaders in 【industry】 won and scaled”	sources/
Regulation	”Regulatory and tax changes affecting 【industry】“	market/

Tip: always add a region. “The coffee market” gets you national generalities. “Coffee shops in north Austin” pulls competitors, wages, rents, and local programs much closer to your reality.

Tip: one competitor per file, with the same fields (offer, price, target, strengths, weaknesses), so Step 4 can turn them into a comparison table.

Then run the frameworks. Every framework needs a “Company” view — you fill it instantly with your (my company) and (me) files (prompt ⑦ for 3C).

Analyze the macro environment for "【market】 in 【region】" with PEST: political, economic, social, technological. For each, list tailwinds and headwinds for my core business, with sources. Save to research/market/pest.md.

Analyze "【market】" with Porter's Five Forces: threat of new entrants, substitutes, buyer power, supplier power, rivalry. Rate each high/medium/low and conclude whether this industry is structurally profitable. Save to research/analysis/five-forces.md.

Estimate the size of "【market】" as TAM / SAM / SOM. Cite sources and assumptions for every number, and show the calculation for any estimate. Save to research/market/market-size.md.

Tip: if you have a business, you have primary data. Ask a few existing customers “what’s taking most of your time lately?” and “what did you last pay for to fix it?” Save their words in research/sources/. It beats any secondhand report.

Tip: a framework is not a form to fill. Always end with: “From this analysis, what is the one move I should make?”

Step 4: integrate and find the gap

Each source was already structured and connected in Step 2. Step 4 is about laying them side by side — comparison, maps, gaps — which you can only do once several sources exist (prompt ⑧).

The integrated map becomes your single entry point: you no longer reread individual sources to see the whole picture, it feeds Step 5 and the business plan directly, and it stays alive — regenerate it whenever research/ grows.

Established categories are a trap. Every established category has competitors; you get in, then get dragged into price wars. Aim for the gaps in existing categories:

1. What has nobody in this category done yet?
2. Which customers do current players fail to serve?
3. What is still done by hand that AI would let one person do?
4. Where is a trend heading that people don't yet have the skills for?

Example: restaurants × AI

[Established — hard to enter]
Lunch service, delivery → crowded, thin margins

[Gaps — AI makes them possible]
AI setup and coaching for independent restaurants
  → very few people "know the kitchen and the software"
Turning prep workflows into courses
  → repeatable; earns without your hours
Brand and content for local restaurants
  → most can't do social media well

Tip: write cross-source links into relations/. “Competitor A’s weakness is exactly my strength.” “Three sources point at the same gap from different angles.” That’s how the map gets sharper.

Step 5: choose the market and plan the moves

Last: commit to one point, concentrate your resources, and plan how to take it.

Pattern	What it means
Create your own category	Define a category only you own. Slow to be understood; a monopoly if it works
Go deep in a niche	Small but certain demand. Easy to enter; expertise differentiates
Ride the edge of a trend	Pick up what a growing market leaves behind. Demand is proven

Whichever pattern, two conditions must both hold: your skills are fully used, and enough money is already moving. Your Step 1 and Step 3 files are the evidence.

Then define the target precisely:

Market: AI setup and coaching for restaurants

Target:
- Independent restaurants in 【city and surrounding area】
- Annual revenue roughly 【range】
- Owners who want to do social media but don't know how
- Run with three or fewer staff

Save the decision to research/analysis/entry-strategy.md, with the data that decided it, so you can revisit the reasoning when conditions change. Then turn it into moves in research/analysis/action-plan.md (prompt ⑨):

Stage	Example (restaurant AI coaching)
First move	Set up the tools for one existing contact for free, and document it as a case
90 days	Build a landing page from the case; land three paid clients
6 months	Five clients a month on a retainer; turn the setup into a checklist
1 year	Turn the checklist into a course that earns without your hours

Tip: a plan is a simulation, not a promise. Log what happens in actionlog/, and have the AI regularly compare plan vs. reality and update the plan. That’s the S1 loop, applied to the business itself.

The center of S2 is three files: integrated-map.md (the outside map), entry-strategy.md (where you stand), action-plan.md (how you move). When the market shifts, update these first.

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Capstone: a three-year business plan

Pull everything into one three-year business plan — the layer between a ten-year vision and this year’s budget, and the one that drives real decisions.

Part	Contents	Built from
Where we are	strengths and weaknesses; the market, competitors, trends	(me), (my company), integrated-map, PEST, Five Forces
Where we’re going	the picture in 3 years and numeric targets	your intentions, market size
Strategy	which market, whom, with what	3c, entry-strategy
Key initiatives	the moves and yearly milestones	action-plan
Resources	people, assets, money, investment	(my company)

Normally this takes consultants and months. You already have the materials.

1. Have the AI draft the skeleton.

Read all of ontology/ and research/ and draft a three-year business plan in research/analysis/three-year-plan.md:
1. Where we are (strengths/weaknesses from (my company); environment from market/ and competitors/)
2. Where we'll be in 3 years and numeric targets (revenue, profit, customers)
3. Strategy (from entry-strategy.md)
4. Key initiatives and yearly milestones (from action-plan.md)
5. Resources needed (people, assets, money, investment)
For every section, name the files you based it on.

2. Read all of it and rewrite it with your own intent — the most important step. An AI-drafted plan, however polished, is someone else’s essay. Put in how you will fight these three years.

I've read the draft. Rewrite it with these changes:
- The 3-year vision is not "get bigger"; it's "raise prices and run lean"
- This initiative is beyond my resources — lower its priority
- This wording isn't mine; use how I normally talk

3. Ground the numbers.

Ground this plan's targets with evidence:
- Work back from current revenue (my company file) and the SOM in market-size.md
- Give 3-year revenue, gross profit, and customer counts as optimistic / base / pessimistic
- Break each into "number of customers × price"

4. Keep it alive. Compare the plan with actionlog/ monthly and update it. A plan starts going stale the day you write it; the Ontology keeps it alive.

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Are you done?

Step 1

• You collected the outside view and your skills, experience, and resources into people/【Your Name】 (me).md
• You extracted your intentions from inbox/
• Your company is on one page in organizations/【Company】 (my company).md, separate from you
• You listed markets — including outside your industry — where your skills apply

Step 2

• Sources from the web, books, video, competitors, and public data are saved in research/sources/ with source, date, summary, and implications
• Each was connected to concepts/ and links.json as it came in
• Numbers and facts were checked against the original

Step 3

• Market size, competitors, trends, money flow, programs, and costs are in research/market/ and research/competitors/
• You ran 3C, PEST, Five Forces, or market sizing against your own business
• (If you have customers) you added their own words to research/sources/

Step 4

• research/analysis/integrated-map.md holds a comparison table, a market map, and gaps
• You identified a gap in an existing category

Step 5 and capstone

• One market, a specific target, and entry-strategy.md
• action-plan.md with a first move and milestones
• A three-year plan you rewrote in your own words, with grounded numbers, tied to your action log

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Teaching S2: three 2-hour sessions

Session	Theme	By the end
1	You, your company, and research/	Steps 1–2. Write the (me) and (my company) files with a clear line between them; bring in the first few sources
2	Frameworks and integration	Steps 3–4. Base data in market/ and competitors/; 3C/PEST/Five Forces on your own business; comparison table, map, and gaps
3	Decide and plan	Step 5 and the capstone. One market and target; entry strategy and action plan; a three-year plan rewritten in your own words

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Related skills

• Before this → S1: Build your own information system
• Next → S3: Take control of your voice

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SOVREN Framework is open-source. The English edition covers S1–S6; S7–S9 and the milestones are published in Japanese. The method is practiced in weekly live classes in Yokohama, Japan, with a report after every session.