Requirements

Why do some vendors keep making the shortlist while others never get a look? Because every evaluation comes down to requirements: the specific things a buyer needs to be true before they'll pick you.

You see them everywhere once you notice. An RFP is a list of requirements. A procurement process filters for them. A buying committee argues about which ones matter. An AI screening vendors checks you against the ones it thinks apply. Different surfaces, same thing underneath.

This is why the work holds up over time. The tools change constantly: new models, new interfaces, whatever buyers are using this year. What a buyer actually needs changes far more slowly. Study the requirements and what you learn lasts. Study this quarter's tool and it's stale by the next one.

Status note: we're still working out how to measure requirement coverage precisely, alongside M-1. Requirements are here because the whole thing rests on them, not because that measurement is finished.