Autumn Kyles usually starts her coaching sessions by asking entrepreneurs to walk her through their business idea: What problem are you solving, and who needs that solution?
Most of the time, they've thought it through. They know their product, they've identified their customer. But then Kyles starts asking follow-up questions, and that's when things get interesting.
"I start to see the light bulb go off," says Kyles, business navigator for Ann Arbor SPARK. "They realize, oh, I hadn't thought about validating this with actual market data. Is there really demand for what I'm building in this specific area?"
That's when Kyles pulls up SizeUp SPARK on her screen and shares it with whoever's on the other end of the Zoom call. It's a free business intelligence tool that gives Washtenaw County entrepreneurs access to market data that typically costs thousands and sits behind corporate paywalls. The platform covers four areas: comparing performance against competitors and industry benchmarks (Insights), getting customized recommendations for marketing and operations (Small Business Advisor), finding and connecting with potential customers and suppliers (Shop Local), and tracking consumer spending and local economic trends in real time (Pulse).
For the business owners Kyles works with, many in their first year or two, it provides the data to drive decisions.
"The best business decisions are those that are made with data to back them up," says Laura Berarducci, Senior Director of Development and Communications at Ann Arbor SPARK. "While larger companies have the financial resources to access key metrics that can influence market strategies, smaller businesses, especially those early-stage entrepreneurs, don't have that information readily available."
SizeUp changes that. The data comes from hundreds of sources and gets regularly verified, everything from educational materials to hyper-local data points. With support from the Bank of Ann Arbor, SPARK provides it free to anyone in the county. Business owners use it to size up against local competitors and prospect for new customers or partners. Community leaders tap it to better understand the region. Support organizations use it to guide the entrepreneurs they work with. Some people just use it to find their next great lunch spot.
Once SPARK saw what the tool could do, they didn't wait. "We immediately saw the value of SizeUp once it hit our radar," Laura says. "SPARK didn't hesitate to make it available to county entrepreneurs."
When business owners first see SizeUp, the reaction is almost always the same.
"They look at the tool and they're like, 'Wow, it's a lot going on here,'" Autumn says. "SizeUp is a really robust tool...it's a lot of data. And data is an incredible advantage, but it can be hard to decipher how it's useful."
So instead of walking people through every feature, Autumn listens to what they're trying to accomplish and explores the tool alongside them. "I see them really starting to understand the power of SizeUp and how they can use it on their own once they get off the call."
One example: a therapy practice owner came to Autumn and was struggling to help her growing roster of practitioners find clients. Referrals were coming in, but growth had stalled.
"She said, 'We want people 30s to 40s, families, in this specific annual income.'" They typed those demographics into SizeUp and pulled up a heat map showing where those people lived in the county. Then they added another layer: primary care physicians in the same zip codes.
Within minutes, the practice owner had a list of family doctors to reach out to for referral partnerships, complete with phone numbers and email addresses.
"She was able to take that and start to grow her business from there," Autumn says. "You're essentially curating a target audience list for them."
Autumn came to this work through her own experience as a small business owner in Detroit. She built her own firm, took advantage of the Southeast Michigan entrepreneurship ecosystem, and when her business eventually closed, she wanted to keep helping other entrepreneurs work through the same challenges.
"Throughout my experience, I've supported thousands of entrepreneurs," she says. When Ann Arbor SPARK needed someone who understood both the Washtenaw County ecosystem and the realities of starting and growing a small business, the fit made sense.
Now she works out of SPARK's Ypsilanti office, also known as the SPARK East Innovation Center, providing one-on-one consulting and hands-on training for small business owners exploring SizeUp and other resources. Her advice comes from what she's lived, which means she knows exactly where entrepreneurs get stuck.
Early-stage entrepreneurs make up most of SizeUp's current users, individuals looking at their first sale or first few sales. But there are two groups Autumn thinks would benefit from SizeUp SPARK.
The first: businesses that need to pivot. "They've done everything that they could with the products or services that they're trying to sell and they're like, 'Hey, I'm still trying to make this business run, where do I go next?'" SizeUp can validate what they've been doing, show them if it works, and then answer the harder question: now that you know what your product is, who's actually looking for that?
"That information, all of that data, is in SizeUp," Autumn says. "They should really use that as market research to figure out what to do next."
The second: business owners who want to keep their spending local but don't know where to start. That's where the Shop Local module comes in. Laura calls it "a fantastic tool for sourcing from other local entrepreneurs," but it tends to get passed over when people first use the platform during the idea stage.
Where it becomes useful is when entrepreneurs start making financial investments into a growing business. Say you're opening a coffee shop and want to offer pastries, but don't have a pastry chef. You could use Shop Local to find local bakeries or cottage industries willing to partner with you. The connections are already there.
SizeUp isn't meant to stand alone. It's a gateway into SPARK's broader ecosystem of support for businesses at every stage.
"SPARK's mission is to drive smart economic growth in service of prosperity for all, and SizeUp SPARK is just one of the many resources available," Laura says. Whether you're a tech entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a decision-maker at a well-established company, SPARK has resources and expertise to help. And it's all free. The organization is supported by private, public, and academic partners who believe in the mission and SPARK's 20-plus years of delivering regional impact.
Beyond SPARK's direct support, community partners, including A2Y Chamber, SBDC, and Destination Ann Arbor, are trained to help businesses navigate the platform. It's a network built to make sure entrepreneurs don't have to figure this out alone.
"Success for SPARK is seeing the success of these small businesses in our area," Laura says. Since launching in March 2025, SPARK's goal for this year is increased adoption, more workshops, additional one-on-one trainings, and driving awareness of what's available. "The more support we receive, the more support we'll be able to provide."
For Autumn, it comes back to what she learned building her own business. "Data is really going to be the biggest tool you have to be successful, to validate if your business is going to be successful in the future, and to understand if there are people who are willing to pay money. As businesses are starting to think about how do I start, how do I grow or pivot, and then how do I thrive, you need to leverage data. And it's not easy to find. But if you're in Washtenaw County and you have a tool like SizeUp, please use the tool. There's so much value in it."
Beyond the raw data, SizeUp includes business planning support, which Autumn calls a core piece of what you need to get funding and think critically about your business. "There are so many tools and features on SizeUp that are helpful. Honestly, it's a great place to start if you're looking for support."
SizeUp SPARK is available now at annarborusa.org/sizeup. SPARK offers one-on-one support sessions, open office hours on Tuesdays, and weekly themed drop-in consulting every Thursday.