How to Get Investors Excited About Your Market Opportunity | by DC Palter | Dec, 2023

Market dimension is essential. Most pitches get fallacious.

“Our new product will disrupt a $47.9 billion greenback market rising at a CAGR of seven.3%.”

Listening to early-stage startup pitches, I’m continuously bombarded with bombastic claims like these. After I dig in, it inevitably seems they’ve developed a distinct segment product inside a big trade, and their market alternative is barely $20 million.

Founders appear to suppose that huge numbers will seize traders’ consideration, however wild claims solely result in skepticism about the whole pitch. What issues just isn’t the trade dimension however the alternative to your specific product.

Smaller is usually higher, anyway, since smaller markets are simpler to interrupt into with out having to take a position thousands and thousands on Tremendous Bowl advertisements.

However whether or not the chance is huge or small, what traders want is a practical market evaluation that explains the chance slightly than breathless claims of giant markets that say nothing in regards to the firm’s prospects.

After I mentor startups, market sizing is normally the very first thing we work on for the reason that marketing strategy needs to be pushed by market want, not product thought. Sadly, most TAM/SAM/SOM analyses that I see are a large number.

So right here’s what it’s essential find out about market sizing and tips on how to present the data traders are searching for in your pitch. As an alternative of attempting to get us excited in regards to the dimension of the market, impress us along with your trade information and present you absolutely perceive the particular alternative you’re attacking.

What are traders searching for?

After a brief description of the issue and the answer you’ve developed, the subsequent slide within the pitch ought to be the market dimension. It tells us who the shoppers are, what number of there are, and the way you intend to compete.

The general aim of the pitch is to persuade traders that purchasing fairness in your small business is an effective funding that may repay with an enormous return. This can occur as a result of the corporate will develop at exponential charges to succeed in $100M+ in revenues inside a couple of years and be acquired, or keep on a trajectory in the direction of $1B+ in revenues and do an IPO.