Refer to the Scenario Below to Answer the Following Questions

Refer to the scenario below to answer the following questions.
Angela's Thesis Coaching Company (Scenario)
Angela is finally starting to feel more at ease with her business. Six months since the launch of her Ph.D. Thesis Masters she is starting to see revenues climb and her associates are producing great work-and more importantly, her customers are happy. Ph.D. Thesis Masters (PTM) provides coaching and research services for masters and Ph.D. students working on their theses. Angela discovered that many students need help with much of the grunt work of formatting, meeting deadlines, and doing secondary research of the existing literature.
Her associates are Ph.D. graduates who have successfully completed their theses and can now guide other students and help them with the related pressures and quality guidelines. Angela has worked out a formula where she charges student clients $75 per hour and pays her associates $45, leaving her with a $30 gross profit (or gross margin) for every hour of work completed. Her customers are happy and her associates are happy.
-To get here, Angela had to do complete a number of research tasks herself, the majority of which had to do with the potential of the student market, competitors, and the viability of her associates model, as well as ongoing understanding of how her services need to evolve. This type of research is most likely _________________.

A) curiosity-driven research
B) research and development
C) focus group research
D) applied research
E) qualitative research