Think of a market as a group of people who all share a common activity, workflow, or process. That's not to say they all have the same job - it's about a common and high-level set of steps. Look at it like this:
<aside>
👉🏼 A Market = a group of people + an activity they need (or want) to do
</aside>
Let's start with some simple examples of markets, we'll come back to opportunities 🔜
Below are two tables showing groups of people and activities they might do. You can mix and match across the two tables, you'll probably find there's a niche Reddit community or Facebook group for any pair of people + activities.
| Groups of People |
|---|
| parents |
| CS graduates |
| people who want to get in shape |
| people who want a career change |
| noobs |
| women and minorities |
| gamers |
| educators |
| Activity |
|---|
| booking a holiday |
| shopping |
| exercising |
| writing code |
| designing an app |
| writing copy |
| creating YouTube videos |
| travelling to work |
Notice that the activity - the job they are trying to get done - it is agnostic to any technology or product. This is what some people misunderstand and why I believe a lot of products fail:
<aside> 🧘🏽 You need to focus on why people need the product in the first place
</aside>
Let's visualise the issue using Mario Bros.
In the game, Mario is trying to rescue the Princess (yes, it's dated). He has to complete multiple levels to reach her. In each level there are "power-ups" that give Mario (usually temporary) powers.
Power-ups do something to Mario that gives him an advantage - making it faster/easier to reach his final goal. The mushroom power-up for example, makes Mario bigger. It allows him to do more than he ever could without it. It increases HIS chances of success.
Here's where founders often fail At first glance a startup founder sees "Mario" chasing "mushrooms", so they wrongly assume that his goal must be to either collect mushrooms or to become big Mario. This leads the founders to the assumption that there's a market for "mushrooms". So the mistaken founder spends lots of time building better and cheaper mushrooms but "Mario" isn't interested enough to buy more mushrooms - he's satisfied with the power-ups he can get for free. The founder fails (but hopefully learns why).
Here's where founders succeed At first glance a second founder sees Mario chasing mushrooms. So they stop and ask Mario "why are you chasing mushrooms".
Mario replies "to jump higher", the succesful founder isn't satisfied.