Strategy & Market Research: position, compete and pivot

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I'm learning "Strategy & Market Research: position, compete and pivot" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "Before you start, and what strategy is".

What the lesson teaches:
- This course assumes you finished courses 2.3 and 2.3.2. You have a one-page plan, 5 customer conversations, a competitor table, a start-up budget and a 12-month forecast with low, expected and high cases, with each assumption written on its own row.
- Strategy here means a set of choices: who your customers are, what you offer them, how you are different, and what you will not do. Choosing means leaving some things out.
- Market research is collecting facts about customers, competitors and the market so you can make better choices. Secondary research uses information that already exists. Primary research collects new information yourself (BDC).
- BDC's advice is to start with a scan of secondary sources for a high-level view before primary research. Before starting primary research, decide what business decisions it should inform, who to talk to and the single question that matters most.
- BDC also warns not to rely only on the web, your personal network or anecdotal feedback.
- A research plan has four lines: Decision (what will I choose after this?), Question (what do I need to know?), Source (where will I look or who will I ask?) and Rule (what result would change my mind?).
- Research does not guarantee success. It lowers the chance of being surprised by facts you could have checked.

The exercise I'm working on:
Write three research plans (Decision, Question, Source, Rule) for your three riskiest guesses.

I'm stuck. Please:
1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example.
2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step.
3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.

I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "Before you start, and what strategy is" from the course "Strategy & Market Research: position, compete and pivot".

Here's what the lesson says:
Before this course: Financial Plan (course 2.3.2). Before that: Business Plan in One Weekend (course 2.3). You already have a one-sentence idea, a price, costs, a break-even number and a 12-month forecast. A map is only useful if the roads on it are real. This course checks the roads: who really wants this, who else is on the road and which turn to take.

The activity:
Write three research plans (Decision, Question, Source, Rule) for your three riskiest guesses.

Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words.
Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.