A rigorous mid-market B2B research project can be run for almost no cash outlay. The realistic cost is about six weeks of part-time effort from two people: half a day framing the decision, two to three days analyzing internal quote and win-loss data, roughly fifteen hours of customer interviews, six hours of lost-deal conversations, a day of secondary source review, and two days of synthesis. The binding constraint is calendar time for scheduling interviews. Paid syndicated reports are usually priced for enterprise buyers and answer questions too abstract to change a mid-market decision.