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2 resources from Pear VC we point founders to, and the questions each answers.

✍️ Essay
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it Most market sizing advice online is generic TAM SAM SOM filler. This one is written by an investor, backed by a survey of 30 VCs, and it is honest about the thing that matters: a big number pulled from an industry report proves nothing. It walks you through building the number bottom up (customers times what they pay you per year), which forces you to confront whether real people will actually pay, and that is the honest test of whether an idea can grow past a niche.

Market Sizing Guide

From Pear VC by Ian Taylor ~15 min read

  • Size the market bottom up (count of real customers times annual revenue per customer), not by claiming a percent of some giant top down figure.
  • TAM, SAM, and SOM are used loosely across the industry, so state your assumptions plainly instead of hiding behind the acronyms.
  • Project the market out five or more years and include how you would actually reach and acquire customers, since a market you cannot serve is not your market.
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Answers How big does my market need to be for this to be a real business? What are TAM, SAM, and SOM and how do I actually calculate them? My market is small right now but growing fast. Is that a problem? How do I size a market for India specifically when data is messy? How do I evaluate whether an idea is big enough to be worth years of my life? How do I estimate a market size when the product I'm building doesn't have a category yet? Investors keep asking for a top-down TAM slide, but I built my number bottoms-up. Which do I show? How do I size a market I want to sell to businesses outside the big Indian startup hubs? How much of the market do I realistically need to capture for this to be a real business? Everyone says my market is too niche to be venture-scale. When are they right, and when are they wrong? How do I research market size and timing when I can only spend a weekend and have no budget for reports? How do I know if a trend is big enough to build a company on, or just a small niche? How do I research a market in India where reliable data and analyst reports basically don't exist?
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Why we picked it A focused guide on the early employee side: how to size grants for your first several hires and set up the option pool. It gives concrete percentages that sit clearly below co-founder territory, which is exactly the line you are drawing. Read it alongside the Carta data for a full picture.

How to Structure Startup Equity for Early Hires

From Pear VC 12 min read

  • Size early hire grants by seniority and join order, in fractions of a percent to a few percent
  • Reserve an option pool up front so grants come from a plan
  • Early hires get real equity, but an order of magnitude below co-founders
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Answers What equity should I offer a technical co-founder vs. an early engineer?
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