market-research

---
name: market-research
description: When the user needs to estimate market size, understand market dynamics, or validate that a market opportunity is large enough to pursue.
related: [competitive-analysis, prd-writing]
reads: [startup-context]
---

# Market Research

## When to Use
Activate when a founder needs to size a market opportunity using TAM/SAM/SOM, validate market assumptions for a pitch deck, understand growth trends, evaluate market entry, or prepare for investor conversations about addressable market. Trigger phrases include "how big is our market," "TAM/SAM/SOM," "market size," "market opportunity," "is this market big enough," "market trends," "help me with the market slide," or "validate our market assumptions."

## Context Required
- **From startup-context:** product description, target customer segments, pricing model, geographic scope, business model.
- **From the user:** the market or segment to analyze, known data points (industry reports, customer counts, pricing benchmarks), geographic and industry constraints, whether this is for internal decision-making or external presentation (investor deck), and any specific hypotheses about market dynamics.

## Workflow
1. **Define market boundaries** -- Specify the problem space, customer segments, geography, and constraints. "Project management tools" is a different market than "team collaboration software." Precision determines whether the analysis is useful.
2. **Top-down estimation** -- Start from total industry size using industry reports, public company revenues, and government statistics. Narrow to the relevant segment by applying filters for geography, customer type, and product category.
3. **Bottom-up estimation** -- Build independently from unit economics: (number of potential customers) x (price per customer) x (purchase frequency). Cross-validate against the top-down estimate.
4. **Scope the SAM** -- Identify which portion of TAM is realistically serviceable given current product capabilities, pricing, distribution channels, and geographic reach.
5. **Estimate the SOM** -- Project achievable market share in 1-3 years based on competitive position, go-to-market capacity, and current traction.
6. **Project growth** -- Forecast how TAM, SAM, and SOM evolve over 2-3 years. Identify key growth drivers, technology shifts, regulatory changes, and demographic trends.
7. **Map assumptions** -- Surface every critical assumption underlying each estimate. Rate confidence levels and identify how to validate the most uncertain assumptions.
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