Market: 
Target customer: 
Product positioning: 

Validate market size:

1. Top-down approach (market research)
   - What's the total market size for this category?
   - What % could you realistically reach? (1%, 5%, 10%?)
   - TAM = (Total Market) × (Realistic %)
   - Conservative estimate?

2. Bottom-up approach (build from customers)
   - How many potential customers exist?
   - Average deal size?
   - TAM = (# customers) × (avg deal size)

3. Validation
   - Do top-down and bottom-up agree?
   - If they differ greatly: which assumptions are wrong?
   - What sources are you trusting?
   - How old is the data?

4. Market segmentation
   - Is TAM uniform or fragmented?
   - Which segments are largest?
   - Which are fastest growing?
   - Which have highest margins?

5. Realistic capture
   - What's a good outcome? (1% TAM in 5 years)
   - Best case? (5% TAM)
   - Realistic? (0.5% TAM)

6. Red flags
   - If TAM < $100M, probably too small
   - If TAM undefined or vague, market doesn't exist yet
   - If TAM growing <2% annually, why enter?
   - If TAM only reachable through huge market shift, risky

7. Update annually
   - Does market still look good?
   - Is it growing as expected?
   - Are you capturing market share?
   - Has competition changed market?
   - Should you pivot or double down?

Examples

Input

{
  "market": "AI/ML DevOps Tools",
  "customer": "ML teams at Series B+ startups ($5M-$50M ARR)",
  "positioning": "Purpose-built MLOps platform, not generic DevOps"
}

Output

Top-down and bottom-up TAM calculations, validation comparison, market segmentation, realistic capture scenarios, red flag analysis, and annual review plan.

Sources

https://www.ycombinator.com/library/3V-market-sizing

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