ValidationEmerging Pattern

Study successful incumbents' revenue and operations to validate market size before building

Meeting with established players in your target market reveals whether the opportunity is big enough to pursue. Understanding their revenue, customer volume, and operational simplicity helps you assess if you can build a competitive alternative with your unique advantage (like AI).

When to use

When entering a new market where you have a unique advantage or efficiency improvement but need to validate that the underlying business model works at scale

Don't do this

Assuming market size based on hunches or avoiding competitor research because you want to be 'original'

1 Founder Who Did This

1
AI Ebook Brandby Joe Popovic

Met with a publishing company in July 2022 that showed him their stats: $2M annual revenue from selling books, with high monthly book purchase volume

Result:Validated the market was large and simple enough to enter with AI advantage, leading to $390K profit business
Read full story →