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Alex Lopes
Sharebird CEO | Formerly FormstackNovember 29

The size of market is often inversely correlated with success. One wants to go after a fairly small market and own that market instead of going after a very large market that is very competitive.

The best market to go after has the following characteristics:

  1. the market is fairly small (ideally under $50 million)

  2. no one else smart is currently focusing solely on the market

  3. the market is going to grow really fast (like 100% per year)

  4. no one else except you believe the market is going to grow really fast (so you don't invite competitors)

  5. the market has a "central" element that makes it very important to many adjacent markets (so when the market stops growing fast, the company can move to an adjacent market)

  6. you are not doing something that another company could offer for free for position (try to never compete with Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc.)

  7. there is a powerful reason for a winner-take-most scenario where one company will own the market (often because of network effects or the centrality of the business).

If you don't do this, you are likely in an execution business. Execution businesses can be super large businesses, but they are way harder to run than product businesses.

One could get lucky and pick a market with the seven criteria above, but usually only a great team will have the foresight to pick this market.

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