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Why we picked it If your product does not fit an existing category, you cannot borrow someone else's market number, so this piece hands you a way to size from the problem instead. Its formula is blunt and useful: how many people have the problem, multiplied by what they already spend to deal with it. That reframes market size around the behavior and budget you are replacing, which is exactly the move you need when no analyst has drawn your box yet.
What is Category Design in Marketing, and Why is it an Important Strategy?
From Play Bigger by Play Bigger ~12 min read
- Size a new category as (number of people with the problem) times (what they pay today to solve it), not as a slice of some named market.
- The unit that matters is current spend and effort on the workaround you are displacing, so go count that.
- Category potential is an argument you make with visible assumptions, so keep every input transparent and easy to challenge.