A practical framework for market analysis: TAM/SAM/SOM sizing, customer segmentation, competitor mapping, and sourcing data investors trust.
The market analysis is where most business plans quietly lose credibility. Either it's a wall of borrowed industry statistics with no connection to the business, or it's a single sentence claiming a "$400 billion market." Here's how to write one that holds up.
Be narrower than feels comfortable. You are not in "the global wellness market." You are in "boutique reformer Pilates studios in metro Austin." A defensible narrow market beats an impressive broad one every time.
TAM (Total Addressable Market): everyone who could theoretically buy the category - SAM (Serviceable Available Market): the slice your model and geography can reach - SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market): what you can realistically capture in 3-5 years
Build SOM bottom-up: units × price × realistic penetration. Top-down percentages ("we only need 1% of the market") are a red flag to every investor who has heard it before.
For each segment, document: who they are, the problem they're solving, what they currently do instead, willingness to pay, and how you reach them. Two or three well-drawn segments beat six vague ones.