The Research Gap Every Founder Knows
Most pitch decks include a market slide, and investors tend to ask the same questions: "How big is the market? Who are the competitors? Why now?" The answers should rest on data a founder can name and defend — not a search result and a number pulled from a 2019 report.
A pre-seed founder trying to close a round usually needs that answer within days, on a budget measured in hundreds of dollars. Without it, the market slide is the one that gets questioned and is hardest to defend.
VIDANALYTICA INC was built to close that gap: AI-powered research that answers one focused question, with sources cited inline and a sample of key claims fact-checked before delivery — in 48–72 hours, from $99. You can see what a delivered brief looks like on the sample reports page.
What a $99 Starter Report Includes
A focused, decision-ready brief on the single question you choose — scoped tightly so the answer is useful.
Source-cited analysis: the findings that answer your question, and nothing padded around them.
A decision-ready summary of the key findings — written so you can adapt it for a pitch deck.
An automatic fact-check runs on a sample of key claims before the brief is delivered.
Findings are cited inline to the sources they rest on, so you can trace a figure before it goes into a deck.
Delivered as a PDF within the standard 48–72-hour turnaround, which carries no rush fee. A rush delivery upgrade is offered at checkout.
Know What a Statistic Counts Before You Cite It
Founders often borrow a number about "small businesses" or "startups" for a market slide. Three official U.S. sources answer three different questions, and mixing them up can overstate a slide's case.
The SBA Office of Advocacy defines a small business for research purposes as an independent business with fewer than 500 employees, and counts 36,207,130 of them. Of those, 82.3 percent (29,811,495 firms) have no employees and 6,395,635 have paid employees; it counts 21,041 large businesses (SBA Office of Advocacy, Frequently Asked Questions About Small Business, February 2026).
For your slide: a product "for small businesses" should say whether its market is the 29.8 million firms without staff or the 6.4 million with payroll. A product sold only to large companies starts from about 21,000 firms.
The Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics define a business application as "an EIN application made predominantly for business purposes" and a business formation as "the formation of an employer (wage-paying) business from a business application" ( U.S. Census Bureau, Business Formation Statistics definitions).
For your slide: a headline count of business applications counts tax-ID filings, not new companies with payroll.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures age and survival at the establishment level, so when a chain store opens a new branch, that branch counts as a new opening (BLS, Business Employment Dynamics, establishment age and survival FAQ).
For your slide: BLS survival rates describe workplaces, not companies, and they report how many survive, not why the others closed.
Worked Example: Reading a Survival Table
Survival rates are a common pitch-deck number. Here is how to read one from the primary table rather than a secondhand summary. The figures below come from Table 7, "Survival of private sector establishments by opening year", in the BLS establishment age and survival data (BLS, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7, total private).
Private-sector establishments that opened in the year ended March 2020.
Of that cohort, the number still operating in March 2025.
Matches the survival rate BLS publishes for that cohort.
Of 652,518 establishments that opened in the year ended March 2014, 213,062 survived to March 2025.
The SBA's summary of the same BLS series gives averages for 1994–2022: a five-year survival rate of 49.2 percent and a ten-year rate of 33.9 percent. It adds that "more than two thirds of businesses (69.5 percent) that reach five years reach ten" (SBA Office of Advocacy, February 2026, linked above).
What the table does not tell you is why the other establishments closed: Table 7 has no column for cause. If a deck states what share of startups fail for a particular reason, it should name the survey behind that figure. The same test applies to market size — our TAM, SAM and SOM guide works a sizing example from Census data with every input named.
Research by Funding Stage
Test the market hypothesis before building. Check the evidence for demand before raising.
Back your pitch deck with cited market data. Answer the "how big is the market?" question with evidence — a full TAM/SAM/SOM build is a Professional analysis ($999).
Commission a Competitive Analysis ($149) to sharpen positioning ahead of a larger raise, or a Focused Analysis ($999) when the raise needs multi-segment and regulatory depth.
Understand competitor pricing, feature gaps, and positioning before you go to market.
Re-check market shifts each quarter with a new brief, without retaining a full-time research analyst.
Give board members sourced market context for strategic decisions.
How Research Needs Change as a Company Grows
What changes with company size is mainly the scope of the question. A founder usually needs one answer before a meeting; a larger company's strategy team needs several, across segments, on a planning calendar. The same price list covers both, so the choice is about scope.
Inside a larger company, the same kind of research can serve four functions: strategy and corporate development (annual planning, M&A screening, board briefings), product management (competitive feature analysis and market-sizing checks before roadmap commitments), sales enablement (competitor battlecards and public pricing), and investor relations (the market narrative for earnings calls and investor days).
When to Upgrade to Professional ($999)
The Starter report covers a single focused topic in depth. For founders preparing a Series A deck or approaching a complex market with multiple segments, a Professional Focused Analysis delivers a deeper, multi-section deep-dive on a defined scope — and we sign NDAs upon request. Competitor mapping on its own is the $149 Competitive Analysis.
Key Takeaways
- ✓ $99 Starter report answers one focused question, with key findings and an executive summary
- ✓ Delivered in the standard 48–72-hour turnaround, with no rush fee; a rush upgrade is offered at checkout
- ✓ Sources cited inline; a sample of key claims fact-checked before delivery
- ✓ Check the unit before you cite it: SBA small businesses, Census business applications and BLS establishments measure different things
- ✓ In BLS data, 51.4% of private-sector establishments that opened in the year to March 2020 were still operating in March 2025
- ✓ Larger companies need broader scope on a planning cycle: Focused Analysis ($999), Comprehensive Report ($1,999) or Enterprise Intelligence ($2,999)
- ✓ No recurring fee, no retainer — pay per brief
Order Your Startup Research Brief
Starter from $99, delivered in 48–72 hours. Professional from $999, delivered in 7–10 days. No recurring fee. Need a quicker answer? The $15 Answer Memo and $29 Verified Snapshot are delivered in minutes.