For this whitepaper, Marc De Pape sought an interesting company for demonstrating the Growth Mapping process.

Marc chose generative AI music service Suno.ai because it allowed him to build on the thoughts shared in previous articles. This whitepaper is unsolicited by Suno.ai, and purely an example of our work.

At Sightglass, we use Growth Mapping to help companies uncover meaningful opportunities and align product decisions with business strategy. To illustrate the process, we applied it to Suno.ai — a generative music startup aiming to make song creation as easy as taking a photo.

While the tech is impressive, the path to scale is unclear. Our Growth Mapping identified four potential value propositions, from bridging the songwriting skill gap to enabling personalized music for content creators. But the real question isn’t what Suno can do — it’s who needs it, and why.

We found two promising markets:

• The Creator Economy, where Suno can offer easy, royalty-free music for content

• Meme Music, where AI-generated songs become tools for emotional self-expression on social media

Both present more viable paths than Suno’s current mass-market or songwriter positioning.

Our takeaway? Suno is chasing a Midjourney-style model in a market that behaves very differently. With the right strategic pivot — and better alignment of product, market, and monetization — Suno could see long-term success.