Essay

India1, Avocado Startups, and Finding Product Market Fit

Sajith Pai Free Intermediate India

Essential reading for anyone sizing an Indian market. Pai shows that India's billion people are not one payable market: roughly a hundred million strong India1 is the real paying base for most startups, not the headline population. It is the sharpest correction to the huge TAM trap in an Indian context, and helps you size the segment that will actually transact.

  • India1, around a hundred million people, is the real paying market for most startups
  • A billion population is not a billion paying customers
  • Size the segment that can actually transact, not the whole country
Open on sajithpai.com ↗

It answers 5 questions

  1. How big does my market need to be for this to be a real business?
  2. How do I size a market for India specifically when data is messy?
  3. How do I tell the difference between a trend that only matters to Silicon Valley and one that will actually land in India?
  4. How do I size a market I want to sell to businesses outside the big Indian startup hubs?
  5. How specific should my ideal customer be for a consumer app versus a B2B tool?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The essay that put 'product-market fit' into the startup vocabulary. Read it for the gut-level description of what PMF feels... pmarchive.com Essay · ~15 min read The Only Thing That Matters Marc Andreessen
  3. Most market sizing advice online is generic TAM SAM SOM filler. This one is written by an investor, backed by a survey of 30... Pear VC Essay · ~15 min read Market Sizing Guide Ian Taylor
  4. Blume's annual report is the single best data-grounded read on what is actually happening in Indian internet and consumption,... Blume Ventures Article · ~180 charts Indus Valley Annual Report 2025 Sajith Pai, Anurag Pagaria and team (Blume Ventures)
  5. A clean definition of the three market layers with the key distinction spelled out: TAM is the whole opportunity, SAM is what... Forum Ventures Article Market Sizing for Startups: TAM, SAM, SOM Explained Forum Ventures
  6. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →