Solutions for Nobody: The Oversized Total Addressable Market
We have lots of companies with enormous total addressable markets without the ability to affect any real, tangible change in those markets...
There was once a Gnat. He was large for a Gnat, and he made a lot of noise when he flew and drew significant attention from the other insects he lived around.
One day, as he crossed a meadow, he became tired and settled on the tip of one of the horns of a Bull.
After resting a short time, he prepared to fly away. But before he left, he begged the Bull's pardon for having used his horn for a resting place.
"You must be happy to have me go now," he said.
"It's all the same to me," replied the Bull. "I didn't notice you when you came, and I won't notice when you've gone.”
Solutions for Nobody
“The greatest human failing is we forget what we set out to do.” – Nietzche.
“If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would really miss you and why?” - Jim Collins.
It is easy for those of us in agtech to make a mess of our core problem statement and forget the reason we exist.
Every product developed for this market has many potential applications: are we serving researchers? Producers? Advisors? Investors? All the above?
Unfortunately, for many of us, the answer to that question is “yes, we serve everybody in ag.”
When we don’t force ourselves to focus our problem statement on something viscerally experienced by our actual customer base, we end up with a weak organizational point of view and force ourselves to compete with numerous others.
…in other words, we have an enormous total addressable market without the ability to affect any real, tangible change in those markets – we end up like the gnat on the bull’s horn.
With no focused point of view at the company level, we have no way to establish a new category that seeks to overcome our concentrated set of problems.
With no category, we cannot stand out and capture 76% of the market cap for our serviceable sector of agriculture...and suddenly, we end up with hundreds of companies “feeding the world” without a meaningful market differentiation and an anemic customer list.
The truth may be that your technology COULD serve multiple segments. In fact, in a highly integrated environment like agriculture, you will likely be stuck between two possible beneficiaries of your technology. You do not have the customer brain share or the marketing budget necessary to message both equally.
You must choose to make a real difference, pick a niche, and tell a compelling story - don't let your investor deck be the most significant thing about your company.
Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.
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