How to calculate the size of the problem
What is the potential size of the problem you want to address?
As you’ll have read in the Focus chapter of The Entrepreneur Within, there are five key questions to ask:
Does the problem fit in with the Purpose of your business?
Do you have the Prowess or unique advantages to solve this problem?
Is there enough Potential market to make this problem worthwhile?
Can you make sufficient Profit from finding a solution?
And finally, is it the right Time to address this problem?
As promised, this article offers up some of my favourite sources to assess the size of the problem to really discern whether it’s big enough to take aim at. It’s simple really: Is there going to be a big enough market?
To discover the size of the problem, we need information from a disparate range of sources. We then need to predict the size of the problem using the essential prism of ‘Timing’. The question here is: Is the potential market size growing or shrinking?
So where to look?
Government data
Office for National Statistics
The ONS is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics responsible for collecting and publishing statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. There is an astonishing range of subject matters from travel trends to retail sales.
The UK Data Service provides access to social and economic data that can help with understanding market demographics and behaviour. It has the UK's largest collection of economic, population, and social research data from Victorian times.
Do you need to snoop on the competition? Companies House allows you access to accounts and personnel changes. It offers insight into how and where companies are investing. Of course, it’s not just about the competition; it also offers insights into where the money is being invested, where the industry breakdown is, and barriers to entry.
Market research reports
Statista offers insights and facts across 170 industries and 150+ countries. Electric vehicles, fast fashion, gaming, Netflix, you name it, and Statista has it. If you need to know how many hours PS5 owners spend on it on average, it’s here, or how Under Armour’s footwear division stands up against HOKA, it’s here.
With the tagline ‘Every sector of the economy, at your fingertips’. This site is designed for business research with statistics that will allow you to mitigate risk, find competitive edge and understand the market dynamics.
Mintel is a market intelligence agency offering deep insights. Mintel Spark is a new product that is designed to help businesses through early innovation processes and ‘spark creativity at speed’. It will even bring AI-powered image generation to bring concepts to life with mockups.
Business and financial platforms
AI-powered company intelligence with a wealth of trends around investment, start-up seeding, company and sector growth, acquisitions and funding.
Beauhurst started with the idea of finding potential investors for British companies. It’s now a data source for every company in the UK and Germany, with a particular focus on the most exciting and innovative ones. You can genuinely lose yourself in the reports here.
Consumer and demographic data
YouGov
Huge amounts of data about opinions, often with cutting-edge and time-relevant survey data.
A geodemographic segmentation tool that categorises consumers and neighbourhoods to identify potential market size by analysing data from hundreds of different sources.
Online platforms and tools
This site allows you to look at the website data for any website. With it, you can analyse website traffic, benchmark against competitors, assess audience demographics, understand traffic sources, monitor market trends, identify key partners and affiliates, understand market share, and validate assumptions in real-time. You can also estimate revenue potential using data combined with average revenue per user.
Explore what people are searching for right now, as well as over time.
Primary research
Nothing beats speaking to your customers or potential customers, even friends and family, if they’re willing to provide honest feedback. To gather direct consumer feedback, you can create your own surveys using tools such as SurveyMonkey or Google Forms.
