The Research Phase Nobody Budgets For

What Research Actually Is (And Isn’t)

Everyone wants to move fast.

Build the thing, test it, iterate, scale. That's the mantra. And yeah, speed matters. But there's a phase that nobody budgets for, nobody wants to pay for, and somehow everyone's shocked costs them money later.

It's the research.

The Vispea Reality Check

When we started building Vispea, we could've launched in weeks.

Web store up, products listed, AI-generated copy, some ads, done. People do this all the time. Fast to market. Low upfront cost. Sounds smart.

Instead, we spent months just... digging.

Reading about punk fanzines from the 80s. Studying hip hop's actual history, not the watered-down version. Looking into graffiti culture, skating, surfing—the whole ecosystem. We weren't writing marketing copy. We weren't designing yet. We were just trying to understand what Vispea actually was.

My team thought I was crazy. "We could be live already."

Yeah. We could've. And we'd be broke in six months wondering why nobody cared.

What Research Actually Is (And Isn't)

Here's where most people get it wrong. They think research is Google searches and competitor analysis. Five hours of scrolling, maybe a survey or two, then "okay, we understand the market now."

That's not research. That's reconnaissance.

Real research is the uncomfortable, slow, question-asking phase where you actually try to understand something before you monetize it.

For Vispea, it meant:

Reading the history. Not skimming. Actually reading books about punk culture's origins. Hip hop's lineage. Why graffiti matters. Why skating isn't just a sport. These aren't details. They're the DNA of what Vispea needed to be.

Talking to people who live it. Not potential customers. People who actually are the culture. Skaters, musicians, artists, graffiti writers. Asking them what's real and what's posing. Because you can feel the difference. Someone from outside guessing at authenticity reads like corporate trying to seem cool.

Looking at what exists and what's missing. Not to copy it, but to see what's getting watered down. What's being respected. What feels like it has real intent behind it versus what's just chasing trends.

Listening without selling. This is the hard part. You're not listening so you can pitch. You're listening so you can get it.

Sketching, deleting, starting over. Getting comfortable with ideas that don't work. With designs that miss. With brand directions that feel wrong even if they'd probably sell.

This phase doesn't make money. It costs money. And people hate that.

But it's where the actual decisions come from.

The Money Math Nobody Wants to Do

Let's be honest about the cost comparison, because this is where the decision gets made.

Scenario A: Fast Launch

Week 1-2: Build store, grab generic copy, set up ads. Week 3: Go live. Month 1-6: Run ads, get 0.5% conversion rate on cold traffic. Customer acquisition cost is $80. Result: You're making money, technically. But you're indistinguishable from everyone else.

Cost: ~$5k in build and first month of ads. Revenue month 1: Maybe $8k. Feels good.

Scenario B: Research Then Launch

Month 1-3: Research. Dig into culture. Talk to people. Understand the space. Nothing's selling yet. Month 4-6: Build from a clear foundation. Design has meaning. Copy has voice. Launch with actual identity. Month 7+: Growth that works because people feel something real.

Cost: $20-30k in research, design iteration, and delayed revenue. But conversion rate hits 2-3%. Customer acquisition cost drops to $35-40. Repeat customer rate is 40% instead of 8%.

Do the math over 18 months.

Scenario A: You're fighting conversion rates the entire time. You're constantly pivoting because the message doesn't land. By month 12, you've spent $60k on ads, made $80k, and you're exhausted. You're thinking about pivoting or quitting.

Scenario B: You spent $30k upfront on research and setup. Month 7-18, your lower customer acquisition cost and higher repeat rate means you've made $180k and you're profitable. You're also building something that compounds because it has actual credibility.

That $30k research investment paid for itself five times over.

But you have to believe in the math before you do the research. Most people don't.

What Actually Happens in That Research Phase

Now say you spend three months doing what we did. You're not making revenue yet. You're paying for research, design work that goes nowhere, conversations with people in the culture, iterating on an identity nobody's buying yet.

That costs money. Real money. People ask: "Why aren't we selling?"

Bought and read books. Not skimmed. Read. "Please Kill Me" about the New York punk scene. Books on hip hop culture. Histories of graffiti. This sounds expensive for a "research phase." It is. But you need to know what you're talking about.

Listened to music for context. Not as background. Actively listening. Understanding why certain artists matter. What's influential and what's derivative. Listening to the culture through sound.

Attended events. Shows, gallery openings, skate spots. We watched. We listened. We didn't try to infiltrate or sell. We just absorbed.

Talked to the people. Had actual conversations. Not interviews with the prepared answer. Real conversations where they'd tell you what they thought was bullshit about how brands try to co-opt their culture.

Looked at existing brands doing it right. Not to copy, but to see what works. What feels authentic. What people respect versus what people roll their eyes at.

Looked at brands doing it wrong. Because there are a lot. You can see exactly where the posing breaks down. Where the corporate DNA shows through.

Created multiple brand directions and killed most of them. First direction: too corporate. Second: too trendy. Third: too niche, would alienate people. Fourth: we're getting closer. Fifth: there it is.

This sounds chaotic. It is. But it's the opposite of chaotic—it's the only way to actually figure something out.

The chaos is where the clarity comes from.

The Decision Point: When You're 8 Weeks In

There's always a moment around week 8 where someone asks: "Can we just launch with what we have?"

You have enough. A decent brand direction. A web store. Some content. Why wait?

Because you don't actually know if people give a shit yet. You think they might. You hope they will. But you're guessing.

For Vispea, we were at that point. We had a solid brand direction. The website was functional. We could've hit launch.

But we kept going. Deeper into the music side. Longer on the fanzine concept. More conversations with people in the culture.

And that's when something shifted. The fanzine idea went from "cool concept" to "this is actually what we're building." The music went from "differentiator" to "core to everything." The credo shifted from words on a page to an actual way of operating.

That's not a small thing. That's the difference between a brand and a statement.

Why This Matters for AI and Speed

• Talked to people who actually live in these spaces—skaters, musicians, artists. Asked them what's real and what's posing.
• Looked at what's out there already. Not to copy, but to see what's missing. What's getting watered down. What's actually being respected.
• Sketched. Deleted. Started over. Sketched again.
• Listened to music. A lot of it. Not as research, but as osmosis.

Basically, we got curious about something and didn't rush to monetize it.

This sounds soft. It sounds inefficient. Your investors would hate seeing this on a timeline.

But it's where the actual decisions come from.

Why This Matters for Your LLM Strategy

Here's the connection to AI that actually matters:

AI lets you generate things fast. Copy, ideas, variations, designs—all quick. But AI needs direction. It needs you to know what "good" looks like.

If you haven't done the research phase, you're basically asking AI to guess. And when thousands of other people are also asking AI to guess, you all end up with the same thing.

The research phase is when you figure out what good looks like. Then you use AI to execute it faster, not to figure it out for you.

With Vispea, we could've asked an AI to write "authentic punk brand copy." It would've given us something that sounds authentic to people who don't know punk. Completely wrong.

Instead, we knew what authentic actually meant because we'd spent time understanding it. So when we used AI to write variations, brainstorm angles, speed up the fanzine content, it all landed because it had direction.

That's the shift. AI doesn't replace the research phase. It amplifies the research phase.

Instead, we knew what authentic actually meant because we'd spent time understanding it. So when we used AI to write variations, brainstorm angles, speed up the fanzine content, it all landed because it had direction.

The Budget Conversation

If you're working with an agency or freelancer, this is where things get weird.

You want fast and cheap. They want to be fast and cheap. So both of you skip the research phase. You move straight to building.

Then three months in, nothing's working. The site looks fine but it doesn't convert. The messaging doesn't land. You pivot, rebuild, start over. Now you've spent more time and way more money than if you'd just done the research upfront.

We had a client once who wanted to launch a service business in eight weeks. Full brand, website, marketing, the works. They'd gotten a quote from another agency: $15k, done in two months.

We came back and said: "We want to do research first. Four weeks. That's another $12k."

They pushback: "We don't have four weeks. We need to launch."

So they went with the other agency. Launched in eight weeks. Had a website that looked fine. Generated zero qualified leads because the messaging was scattered and the brand didn't have a clear positioning.

Six months later they came to us. Spent $35k to rebrand, reposition, and relaunch. Would've cost them $27k total if they'd done the research first.

That's the pattern. Every time.

Starting the Vispea Growth Services (The Live Case Study)

This is where it gets interesting for us.

We're now starting the 18-month growth services with Vispea. And guess what we're doing first?

Research. Again.

Not of Vispea itself—we've got that solid. Research of the SEO landscape. The audience. What's being searched. What's missing. What we can own.

Then we build the growth strategy from that research. Content angles that matter. SEO opportunities. Social strategies that feel native instead of corporate.

You can follow along at vispea.com. The shop. The music. The fanzine. The growth strategy as it unfolds.

It's a live case study in why soul comes before scale.

So What Do You Actually Do?

If you're starting something now, here's the hard truth:

Budget for research. Real research. Not "I'll think about this for a week." Weeks. Maybe months depending on what you're building.

Talk to people in your space. Not your potential customers—people who actually live it. Ask them what's real and what's fake. Listen to the answer.

Read the history. Understand what came before. See what's missing. See what's being done wrong.

Use AI to speed up the parts that can be fast. Keep the thinking for yourself.

Know what good looks like before you ask anyone to build it.

Then move fast, because you actually know what you're moving toward.

The research phase isn't a delay. It's the foundation. Skip it and you're building on sand.

Do it right and everything that comes after moves faster and converts better.

The numbers prove it. We're just finally willing to admit it takes time.

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This is how we built that soul: we researched first, discovered what Vispea actually was, and then used every tool—including AI—to amplify it. (Read: You Can't AI Your Way Into Having a Soul)

Same principle applies to services too. We killed stuff that was diluting the message so we could go deep on what matters. Deep requires time. Time requires budgeting for it. (Read: The Day We Stopped Building Everything)

Just like LLMs need clear context to work well, your brand needs clear identity. Both require upfront investment before speed helps. (Read: Why Your AI Assistant Suddenly Forgets What You Just Said)

This research feeds directly into accurate forecasting. You can't predict growth if you don't understand what you're building. That's why we do this first. (Read: How to Actually Predict SEO Results)

This is what separates brands that grow sustainably from brands that burn out trying to scale something that was never solid.