Market Research: Understanding the Size and Shape of Your Opportunity

In the context of zigzag, market research refers to a structured document that summarizes what you know about the market you are operating in. It covers the size of the total addressable market, the specific segment you are targeting first, the key trends shaping the industry, and the sources behind your numbers.

This is not academic research. It is a practical document that helps you articulate the market opportunity to investors and gives you a structured way to think about the industry you are entering. It should be grounded in real data, not in assumptions.

Investors will ask about market size. If your answer is vague — "this market is huge, everyone needs this" — that is a warning sign. Investors want to see that you have thought carefully about who specifically will buy from you, how many of those people exist, and how you arrived at your estimates.

Strong market research also demonstrates industry knowledge. A founder who can speak fluently about the trends, dynamics, and constraints of their market signals that they have done their homework. Investors fund people as much as they fund ideas — industry knowledge is part of that.

Three numbers appear in almost every investor conversation: TAM, SAM, and SOM. Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the total revenue opportunity if you served every possible customer in your market — a useful context number but not a realistic target. Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is the portion of the TAM that your product and approach can actually reach. Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) is the portion of the SAM you can realistically capture in the next three to five years.

The SOM is the number most investors scrutinize, because it represents what you are actually planning to build toward. A realistic, well-reasoned SOM is more impressive than an inflated TAM with no supporting logic. Be honest with your numbers. Investors can usually tell when they are manufactured.

Zigzag generates a market research document based on your industry category, customer segment, and Lean Canvas data. The document is produced as a Google Doc that you can edit and expand.

The generated document provides a starting structure and initial data points, but you should plan to add specifics: citations from credible industry reports, data from your own customer conversations, and any proprietary insights that make your understanding of the market unique. Research that comes from talking to actual customers in your market is often more compelling to investors than aggregate industry data alone.

Market research and competitive analysis address related but distinct questions. Market research answers: how large and how shaped is the opportunity? Competitive analysis answers: who else is already operating in this space and how?

These two documents should be consistent with each other. The market trends you identify in your market research should inform the competitive landscape you describe in your competitive analysis. Read them side by side before including them in your data room to make sure they tell a coherent story.