When opportunity knocks, ask “who is there?”
I meet a lot of passionate, excited entrepreneurs, all of who think that their idea is the best of all time. By the time they’ve found me, only a few of these people have spent time figuring out the size and scale of their target market, i.e., the opportunity size of their beloved idea.
The purpose of this research can be summed up in one question: “Is the idea worth pursuing?” After working out the business model, fleshing out the business plan, and looking at the back-of-the-envelope financial projections, is it possible that the business could be a success?
This question is missing from the Business Model Canvas. It is of critical importance to your startup efforts. If the opportunity is not big enough to fit your goals, the goals of your team, and the goals of your investors, then it is not worth pursuing. I have thus added Opportunity to the Business Presentation Pyramid to capture this information.
Step 12 in the first section of this book explains how to research the size of your target market, how to estimate the price for your product/service, and how to combine those two to create an estimate of Opportunity Size.
