Choose Etsy or Amazon Handmade by testing product eligibility, buyer intent, total fees, fulfilment demands and the listing work you can sustain. Do not decide from audience size alone: model one representative order and publish a small reversible test on the better-fitting marketplace.
Build the smallest useful authority
Start with a marketplace test decision. Its minimum fields are: eligibility, current fees, order economics, fulfilment time, listing requirements, test budget and stop rule. Keep links to source records rather than copying changeable facts into several documents. Name the accountable human and define what “current” means.
Run a verify marketplace terms before launch and review after the first representative traffic window. The review should answer what changed, which decision now needs attention and whether the current action remains proportionate. It does not need to repeat work when no exception exists.
Test the failure path
The main risk is that fees, programme rules and discovery behaviour change, while broad traffic figures say little about your conversion. Test one normal case, one missing-evidence case and one disputed or withdrawn input. A safe record shows uncertainty and preserves dissent instead of completing blanks with confident prose.
Use this stopping rule: do not list if eligibility, unit economics, fulfilment capacity or rights to the product are unresolved. Keep consequential communication, contractual promises and irreversible actions under named human approval.
What outcome or decision does this record exist to support?
Prevents a general notes system from replacing a defined job.
Which evidence is current, and what contradicts it?
Makes the account story challengeable.
Who owns the next promise or intervention?
Separates awareness from accountability.
What change will trigger review or escalation?
Avoids both silent drift and unnecessary routine.
Know when it is done
The record is done when another authorised person can identify the current situation, the evidence behind it, the decision required, its owner and the next review point without reconstructing the story from meetings. Do not retain personal or sensitive information merely because it might be useful later.
Detailed enough to support the next decision and no more. Link to authoritative evidence and keep the working record concise.
Only after the manual record works. Begin with bounded read access, test missing and revoked sources, and keep consequential actions under review.
Preserve the conflict, identify the owner and pause the affected decision until the discrepancy is resolved or explicitly accepted.
Find the smallest useful next step
Use Clarity to answer the decision before considering a paid tool. The linked product is an optional implementation aid, not a required outcome of the interview.