Market demand
Are buyers already searching for this problem?
Skip or Ship — Market + Analysis
Is your market big enough to build on?
Market sizing tells you whether the opportunity is worth pursuing. Skip or Ship walks through realistic TAM, SAM, and SOM calculation — without the inflated “multiply-by-everyone-on-earth” numbers.
Competition
How crowded is the space for this exact outcome?
Execution
Can a focused team ship a credible first version quickly?
Revenue path
Is there a believable way to monetize early?
Customer clarity
Do you know exactly who owns this pain day to day?
What TAM, SAM, and SOM actually mean
TAM (Total Addressable Market): The total revenue opportunity if you captured 100% of the market. This gives you an upper bound on what is possible.
SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market): The segment of TAM your product can actually reach given your geography, distribution, and business model.
SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market): The portion of SAM you can realistically capture in the near term. This is the number that actually matters for early-stage planning.
Example evaluation
“A SaaS platform that helps independent coffee shops manage their inventory, ordering, and supplier relationships.”
Fix68/100
TAM is moderate (hundreds of thousands of independent coffee shops globally). SAM is reasonable (tech-adopting coffee shops in developed markets). SOM requires slow, sales-driven rollout per city. Clear demand but distribution difficulty constrains the obtainable market.
The bottom-up sizing method investors actually believe
- Count the specific buyer in one country (e.g. 4,200 independent SaaS analytics teams in the UK).
- Multiply by realistic ARPU (£600/month per team).
- Apply realistic penetration over five years (1% in year 1, 5% in year 5).
- Cross-check with competitor revenue benchmarks.
Top-down sizing (“the global SaaS market is $200B”) gets ignored. Bottom-up sizing tied to a specific buyer and ARPU is what survives investor pushback.
Why market sizing matters for validation
A tiny TAM limits your upside regardless of execution. A huge TAM with no clear SAM means you have not defined who you are selling to. Skip or Ship uses demand signals and competitive data to estimate whether the market is large enough to justify building.
Run your own numbers with the TAM SAM SOM calculator for a bottom-up, investor-credible market size estimate.
Direct answer — TAM SAM SOM analysis
The Skip or Ship Idea Lifecycle System evaluates ideas with five consistent signals: market demand, competition intensity, execution difficulty, revenue potential, and customer clarity. Same inputs, same verdict — every time.
What to prove first
One buyer segment with recurring pain and a clear trigger to pay now. If that is vague, validation can't fix it.
What kills momentum
Generic ICPs, vague outcomes, and zero distribution plan. These collapse execution speed within weeks.
What to decide next
One channel, one wedge use case, one pricing hypothesis to test in the next 14 days.
Stop reading. Get your verdict.
Describe your idea and the Skip or Ship engine returns a Ship, Fix, or Skip verdict with a full 10-category score breakdown — free, in 30 seconds, no signup.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between TAM, SAM, and SOM?
TAM is the total revenue if everyone in the market bought from you. SAM is what you can reach given geography and business model. SOM is what you can realistically capture in the near term — the only one that matters operationally.
How do investors react to top-down market sizing?
Badly. “If we capture 1% of a $50B market” is the kiss of death. Use bottom-up sizing rooted in a specific buyer, ARPU and realistic penetration.
Can a small TAM still be worth pursuing?
Yes, if margins are high and competition is light. Many profitable indie businesses serve TAMs under £50M because they own niche distribution and command premium pricing.
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