The Situation
Tradecraft Industries had built a successful business at their primary location in Denver and wanted to replicate that success in additional markets. The challenge was that "what made Denver work" wasn't fully understood — and replicating it required first understanding the underlying drivers of the first location's performance before identifying where those conditions existed elsewhere in the country.
Without that analytical foundation, expansion decisions would be driven by intuition, proximity, or real estate availability — none of which are reliable predictors of whether a new market will perform.
The Approach
We developed a two-phase analysis. The first phase identified target markets using a detailed ranking and weighting system built around macro indicators relevant to Tradecraft's business model — migration and population growth, cost of living, trade industries business presence, unionization levels, and target demographic concentration. We screened all major U.S. markets and eliminated those falling below the median on the combined customer service and field operations opportunity scores.
The second phase went to the neighborhood level. We simulated drive-time trade areas around every potential block group in shortlisted markets, scoring each block for its probability of meeting the defined criteria. This gave Tradecraft a sub-market view of where to focus — not just a city, but a specific area within that city where the conditions for success were strongest.
Most site selection stops at the market level. The value is in the second phase — knowing not just which city, but which block.