Asymmetry Audit Table

If the user gave numbers

Compute competitor monthly spend ÷ user monthly spend. If the user gave annualized numbers, convert. If the user gave lifetime numbers (e.g., “we have $50k total”), ask for their runway in months and divide.

Edge cases:

• User is bootstrapping with $0 ad budget. Ratio is infinite — treat as categorical.
• Competitor’s “budget” includes state media, regulatory capture, or foreign support. Treat as categorical regardless of direct spend comparison.
• User has more budget than competitor but is losing. Asymmetry is not the bottleneck — something is wrong with product, message, or channel fit. Re-interview before prescribing.

If the user did not give numbers

Ask these heuristic questions and classify qualitatively:

1. Can the competitor afford billboards in your market? Yes → at least severe.
2. Do they dominate paid search in your category? Yes → at least severe.
3. Are they running influencer deals worth five figures a month? Yes → severe or categorical.
4. Do they have state backing, regulatory capture, or government-adjacent funding? Yes → categorical.
5. Is there a national TV campaign, a presence at every major industry event, or pre-installed distribution (default search engines, partnerships with distributors)? Yes → categorical.
6. Can you realistically match even 20% of their monthly paid spend for the next six months? No → severe at minimum.

If the user answers “no” to most of these, they are probably in mild asymmetry territory. If “yes” to 3–4, severe. If “yes” to 5–6, categorical.

Mild asymmetry — playbook summary

• Full hybrid stack is on the table.
• 70% effort to organic (Tier 1–2), 30% to paid (Tier 3, rare Tier 4).
• Pay for Tier 3 only after Tier 2 content has demonstrated organic traction (24–48h gate).
• Run lift tests on any Tier 4 spend. Kill broadcast-style Tier 4 that does not clear the threshold in the lift-test templates.
• Competitive advantage: speed and specificity. Move faster than the incumbent; speak to specific segments the incumbent is too broad to address.

Severe asymmetry — playbook summary

• Organic-led. 80/20 in favor of organic is often safer than 70/30.
• Tier 1 and Tier 2 do the heavy lifting. Tier 3 is used surgically — warm retargeting, long-tail search, amplification of proven Tier 2 winners only.
• Avoid broad Tier 4 (cold Meta, generic search, display). The CPA and lift-test math does not work at this ratio.
• Competitive advantage: authenticity and narrative. You cannot outspend; you can outspecify. Concentrate on a narrow audience that the competitor cannot address because they are too broad.
• Measurement: run a lift test before any paid spend, not after. Use geo-holdouts.

Categorical asymmetry — playbook summary

• Tier 1 and Tier 2 only. Broad paid is off the table.
• Build the thing the competitor cannot buy: volunteer networks, community nodes, earned media, founder-led narrative, door-to-door or direct-contact tactics.
• Counter-position. When the competitor saturates a channel, their saturation is your signal-cut-through — your absence from billboards becomes a message.
• Measurement: lift tests are still mandatory, but the metrics shift — incremental signups, volunteers, attendees, donors. Not CPA on cold Meta.
• Refuse broad cold-paid. If the user insists, explain the diminishing-returns curve and the Hungarian case study (see hungarian-case-study.md) before reconsidering. Most users will change their mind once they see the curve.

How to report the verdict

Tell the user in one sentence, not a paragraph:

“Your asymmetry is severe (competitor spends ~15× what you spend). This means we will lead with organic Tier 1–2 channels, use paid only as surgical amplification of proven organic winners, and run a lift test before any broad paid spend.”

Then move to Stage 4.