Define who could use and buy the current offer before estimating market size. Separate a broad population, customers you can serve and accounts you can plausibly reach. Show the counting rules and adoption assumptions behind a bottom-up scenario, and keep that scenario distinct from verified customer demand.
Write inclusion and exclusion rules first
Describe the customer situation, relevant organisation size, geography, language and delivery requirements. Include only characteristics that affect fit or access; an attractive demographic label is not a substitute for a buying context. State which capabilities exist today and which types of customer would require additional work before the offer could serve them.
Add exclusions explicitly. A service designed for routine approval work may not support regulated records, complex permissions or a language the team cannot provide. Excluding those accounts from a near-term scenario is more honest than counting them because they belong to the same industry. Keep possible future markets in a separate note so ambition does not distort the present boundary.
Build a count that another person can inspect
Choose sources appropriate to the defined group, such as official business statistics, relevant directories or a known channel list. Record the date, coverage and definitions. Published categories may not match your segment: an industry count can include firms too small, too large or operating in a different situation. Show those mismatches instead of silently treating the total as a precise fit.
Deduplicate accounts across lists and distinguish organisations from locations, users or subscriptions. A company with five offices may be one buyer rather than five independent opportunities. If the counting unit changes, explain why. False precision often begins with mixing units before any adoption assumption is applied.
Separate reachable accounts from assumed purchases
Describe how you could contact or serve the accounts in your near-term scenario. A global directory establishes that organisations exist; it does not establish that your channel reaches them or that they will consider the offer. Estimate accessible accounts by specific channels and note overlap between them.
Then apply clearly labelled assumptions about response, qualification or purchase only where useful to the decision. Use a range when uncertainty is material and avoid presenting the middle case as a forecast. A price multiplied by all possible accounts is a revenue scenario under extreme assumptions, not proof of an obtainable market. Keep existing paying customers separate from hypothetical adoption.
Use the scenario to choose research and capacity
Inspect which assumptions most affect the result. If a small change in eligibility or conversion produces a large difference, that may be the next research priority. The goal is to expose uncertainty before committing substantial resources, rather than produce the largest defensible headline for a presentation.
Review the boundary when the offer, channel or delivery capacity changes. A new language capability might expand eligibility while a specialised support requirement might narrow what the team can serve. Retain prior assumptions so changes are explainable. For consequential funding or financial decisions, a market worksheet should support appropriate expert review rather than stand in for it.
Fictional example: counting agencies that could actually be served
A fictional scenario to explain the method, not a customer result or a market benchmark.
A fictional approval service supports English-language workflows for agencies with recurring client deliverables and fewer than fifty staff. Its first estimate uses the total number of businesses in a broad creative sector. On inspection, that total includes solo practices without shared approvals and larger organisations needing capabilities the service lacks.
The team writes eligibility rules, builds a deduplicated list from two channels and separates known accounts from assumed response rates. It presents several adoption scenarios without labelling them confirmed demand. It also records that organisations outside the current language and permission scope require separate investigation. The exercise narrows the next research task to whether eligible agencies recognise the approval problem and can be reached through those channels. This case is invented and contains no estimate of the actual agency market or investment opportunity.
TAKE THIS INTO YOUR NEXT CONVERSATION
A practical next-step checklist.
- State the current offer and eligibility rules before counting.
- Record exclusions tied to real delivery constraints.
- Use consistent units and deduplicate overlapping account lists.
- Separate existence, reachability, interest and purchase assumptions.
- Identify the assumption that most changes the scenario.
Common questions.
Can I use a published industry market value?
Use it as context if the definition and date are relevant. Explain how its boundary differs from your offer; it does not establish the revenue you can obtain.
Should I give one number or a range?
A range is often clearer when important assumptions remain uncertain. Show what changes between cases rather than adding arbitrary precision to one headline number.
Further reading & source context.
These primary references provide background. They are not evidence for the fictional example above and do not endorse AccelerateLink.
Found an error or a missing qualification? Send an editorial correction.
Find my next move.
Use a practical tool to turn this idea into a clearer starting point.
Find my next move