Value Network

• See the whole ecosystem in one place, customers, partners, competitors, and the flows between them.
• Establish one shared set of actors that your needs, competitive, and sizing work all build on.
• Spot missing roles and dependencies before they become surprises.
• Stay current with an AI Industry Analyst Agent that surfaces relevant news on the actors you care about.

• Map actors across eleven roles (customers, channels, suppliers, complementors, competitors, substitutes, and more), as individual companies or whole categories.
• Define the value relationships, value, cash, and information flows, between actors.
• Visualize the network as a value chain, schematic, or graph, filtered by role.
• AI Discovery Assistants propose candidate actors with descriptions, links, and stock tickers for you to review.
• AI Summary Assistants distill role coverage, role gaps, and actor relationships; the AI Industry Analyst Agent monitors relevant news.

1. Populate the actors. Use AI Discovery Assistants to propose the ecosystem, or add actors manually; set each one's role, level, and description.
2. Check coverage. Visualize the network and confirm every important role is represented.
3. Map the flows. Complete the value relationships between actors (many carry over from your value-proposition work).
4. Analyze. Let the AI Industry Analyst Agent continuously monitor relevant ecosystem activity, and generate the role-coverage, role-gap, and relationship summaries.
5. Evaluate the evidence for the product-class- and stage-specific evaluation criteria this tool influences, feeding your Strategy Evaluation.

What is the Value Network tool?

It's a map of the actors in your market ecosystem, customers, channels, suppliers, complementors, competitors, substitutes, and more, and the value, cash, and information that flows between them. Actor identity is owned here once and shared across Growth Forge, so your needs, competitive, and sizing work all reference the same ecosystem.

How do I map my market ecosystem, value chain, or stakeholders?

Add the actors (or let AI Discovery Assistants propose them), assign each a role and level, then define the relationships and flows between them. You can view the result as a value chain, schematic, or network graph and filter by role to check coverage.

What kinds of actors can I map?

Customers, channels, suppliers, complementors, competitors, substitutes, integrators, influencers, payers, potential entrants, and more, as individual named companies or as whole categories.

How is this better than a simple competitor or stakeholder list?

A list captures names; a value network captures the relationships and dependencies between them, who pays whom, who influences whom, where you rely on partners, which is where risk and leverage actually live. It also becomes the shared actor set your Competitive Analysis and customer work draw on.

Does it use AI?

Yes, AI Discovery Assistants propose candidate actors with descriptions and links, and the AI Industry Analyst Agent surfaces relevant news and insights from your ecosystem for the team's consideration.

What does it connect to?

It feeds Jobs to Be Done (the end customer), Competitive Analysis (the competitor set), the Market Sizing Tool, and the external dependencies in your Implementation Approach; its actor and relationship evidence also contributes to your Strategy Evaluation.