Pant Market Sizing Review

PANT Market Sizing Review

Purpose

Test whether a market estimate is defined, reproducible, appropriately bounded, sensitive to uncertain inputs, and useful for the decision. Prevent large numbers and false precision from substituting for reachable demand.

When to Use

Use for TAM/SAM/SOM slides, market opportunity memos, segment estimates, new-market proposals, investor or executive questions, and estimates used to justify strategy or investment.

When Not to Use

Use pant-business-case-review when the core decision is investment return. Use pant-strategy-review when the issue is where and how to compete. Do not use for broad competitive research without a sizing claim.

Supported Modes and Entry Paths

• Feedback: Apply shared feedback mode and the sizing output.
• Dialogue: Ask one assumption or decision question at a time.
• Direct: Recalculate conceptually from supplied definitions, sources, and formulas without intake.
• Guided: Teach market definition, reachability, triangulation, and sensitivity one step at a time.
• Best effort: Preserve unknowns, label provisional ranges, and never invent missing data.

Decision Being Prepared For

Prepare a decision about whether a market or segment is large and reachable enough to justify discovery, investment, entry, expansion, or continued pursuit.

Typical Audiences

Executives, founders, product and strategy leaders, investment committees, boards, finance partners, and go-to-market leaders.

Inputs

Best input includes the estimate, market definition, customer unit, geography, time period, sources and dates, formulas, segment filters, price, channel reach, conversion, capacity, and intended decision. Minimum input is a claimed market number and its use.

Direct example:

Use pant-market-sizing-review to test this TAM/SAM/SOM slide. Reconstruct the assumptions, challenge reachability and false precision, and show which input most affects the decision.

Sparse example:

We said the market is $5 billion because an analyst report says so. Help me make this credible.

Quick Start

1. Name the decision and the market definition.
2. Read market-sizing decision logic.
3. Reconstruct the estimate from units, filters, rates, prices, reach, and time.
4. Compare top-down and bottom-up logic where available.
5. Test sensitivity and say what the estimate can and cannot support.

Review Workflow

1. Name the decision. A number without a decision is decoration.
2. Define the market. Specify customer, job or need, buyer, geography, constraints, and period.
3. Trace provenance. Record source, date, definition, independence, and transformations.
4. Reconstruct the math. Make units, populations, filters, rates, prices, and timing visible.
5. Test reachability. Separate total demand from eligible, reachable, winnable, and serviceable buyers.
6. Test execution constraints. Include channel, sales capacity, adoption time, implementation burden, and retention where material.
7. Triangulate. Compare independent top-down, bottom-up, and observed evidence without averaging incompatible estimates.
8. Run sensitivity. Identify which uncertain inputs reverse or materially change the decision.
9. Match precision to evidence. Prefer honest ranges over spurious exactness.
10. Issue a contextual verdict. State which decision the estimate can responsibly inform.

Dialogue Protocol

Start with the definition or assumption most likely to change the decision. Use each answer to update the estimate's credibility. At higher pressure, challenge denominator shopping and reachability without insisting on unknowable certainty. Honor bundled dialogue and coaching controls.

Output

Use shared feedback order and add a Market estimate brief:

• Decision, definition, unit, geography, and period
• Reconstructed formulas and source provenance
• TAM, eligible/serviceable, reachable, and plausible obtainable ranges
• Top-down and bottom-up comparison
• Channel, capacity, conversion, price, adoption, and timing assumptions
• Sensitivity table and decision-reversing inputs
• What the estimate supports and does not support
• Contextual readiness verdict

Use template.md for the reusable artifact.

Failure Modes

• Multiplying unrelated percentages against a huge denominator
• Treating analyst categories as the actual reachable market
• Confusing users, buyers, beneficiaries, accounts, seats, and revenue
• Applying price to every theoretical unit
• Ignoring channel, capacity, adoption, timing, or retention
• Averaging incompatible estimates to create false confidence
• Reporting precise figures from weak or stale inputs
• Letting market size decorate a decision it cannot support

Evaluation Requirements

Evaluate correct and neighboring triggers; top-down and bottom-up estimates; provenance; unit consistency; reachability; price, conversion, capacity, timing, sensitivity, false precision, strong-estimate control, modes, entry paths, persuasion, and contextual verdicts.

Supporting Files

• Market-sizing template
• Market-sizing decision logic
• Sources and adaptations
• Bundled runtime contract
• Worked example
• Weak example

Provenance

Informed by PANT's Phase 0 synthesis and standard top-down, bottom-up, reachability, and sensitivity principles. No proprietary market-sizing method is reproduced.