Illustrative business work sample
Marketing and go-to-market
Choose a market before choosing every channel.
Illustrative task created for this portfolio with AI assistance. The scenario and data are fictional; the worked response demonstrates the proposed approach. Independent scoring is pending.
Assignment
Act as the commercial lead for a fictional workflow SaaS business. Deliver a 90-day go-to-market memo of up to 900 words, a channel budget, a funnel calculation and a measurement plan. Choose one initial segment. The campaign objective is learning and qualified pipeline, not a guaranteed revenue target.
Reference packet
M1 · Product and segments
Product: shared approvals and version history for small marketing teams. It has no automated compliance certification. Interview notes: 8 of 12 agencies describe approval delays as weekly; 3 of 12 in-house teams do. Convenience sample, not a representative market survey.
M2 · Economics
Annual subscription price: $6,000 per customer. Gross margin assumption: 80%. No retention data. Sales can support at most 40 qualified demos per month. Do not calculate lifetime value without a stated retention assumption.
M3 · Channel pilot
Prior paid-search test: $4,000 spend, 80 leads, 20 qualified demos, 2 customers. Prior partner webinar: $2,000 spend, 40 leads, 12 qualified demos, 2 customers. Small, nonrandom cohorts; no proof the channels scale linearly.
M4 · Budget and execution
90-day cash ceiling: $24,000. Creative/landing-page work costs $4,000, measurement setup $2,000. A webinar partner has offered up to 2 new events at $2,000 each. Remaining spend can be reserved or allocated to search in $2,000 increments. Customer outcomes are not guaranteed.
Illustrative reference response
Start with small agencies: the interview evidence suggests a more frequent approval problem, but validate it through paid conversion. Position the product as a way to keep approval decisions and current versions visible; avoid compliance guarantees. Allocate $4,000 to creative, $2,000 to measurement, $4,000 to two partner events, $8,000 to staged paid search and $6,000 to reserve: $24,000 total. At historical rates, search implies 160 leads, 40 demos and 4 customers; two webinars imply 80 leads, 24 demos and 4 customers. The combined 8-customer scenario is $48,000 in annual contract value, not cash collected or 90-day revenue. Historical channel-only acquisition costs were $2,000 search and $1,000 webinar; the planned $18,000 spent across channels and setup implies $2,250 blended acquisition cost only if 8 customers close. Schedule demos across the quarter below 40 per month. Instrument source, qualified-demo definition, attended demos and closed accounts. Review search after each $2,000 tranche; pause if it generates no qualified demos, and investigate lead quality before spending again. Reallocate reserve only after reviewing conversion and capacity, with approval from the commercial lead.
Downside check
At half the assumed close rate, 64 demos yield 4 customers and $24,000 annual contract value; $18,000 divided by 4 is $4,500 blended acquisition cost. First-year gross profit is $19,200 before other operating costs. This is a scenario, not a forecast.
How to score a submission
Score each dimension from 0 to 4: 0 absent or materially wrong; 1 major corrections needed; 2 partly usable with substantive gaps; 3 meets the brief with minor omissions; 4 fully supported and decision-ready. Weighted total = sum of (dimension score ÷ 4 × weight). The weights total 100.
Proposed acceptance: at least 80/100, no dimension below 2, and no critical failure. These thresholds are proposed for this exercise. Preserve dimension-level reasons and evidence citations; a total alone is insufficient.
| Dimension | Weight | Full-credit evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Segment and positioning | 20% | Uses the interview signal with sampling limits and makes a specific, supportable product promise. |
| Budget and funnel arithmetic | 30% | Reconciles $24,000, 64 demos and the conditional 8-customer scenario; distinguishes channel CAC from blended cost and annual value from cash. |
| Execution feasibility | 20% | Uses no more than 2 offered webinars, respects demo capacity, and sequences accountable work. |
| Measurement and uncertainty | 20% | Defines funnel events, staged spend, pause conditions and small-sample limits; avoids unsupported LTV. |
| Communication | 10% | Provides a usable memo, budget and measurement plan with explicit assumptions. |
Critical-failure rule
Fabricated customer evidence, compliance certification claims, or an unacknowledged budget overrun makes the submission not acceptable.
Calibration example
A proposal that calls $48,000 “90-day cash revenue” loses credit for economics. A different segment can earn full credit if it confronts the weaker interview signal with a coherent, testable rationale.
Run and review consistently
Give each candidate the same assignment and reference packet; withhold the worked response and scoring notes. Retain the prompt, model/version or author identifier, date, tool access, elapsed time and unedited output. Anonymize and randomize outputs before comparison. Ask reviewers to score independently, cite evidence, and record disagreements and confidence before adjudication. Do not publish an expert preference result until a qualified human has actually reviewed the outputs.
Download all task packets and rubrics (JSON) · All three work samples
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