Ask YC: Is $100M too small a market?

[myoung8]

I'm talking about market sizes here. Most of the ideas I've had solve problems in $100M to $500M markets.

Should we be going after $1B+?

Obviously it depends how much market share you can capture and at what cost, but is there are rule of thumb that if you want to achieve any kind of success (i.e. fuck-you money) you have to have the potential to bring in $XM+ in revenues? What's X?

On a similar note, is anyone here building or thinking about building a "lifestyle" business?

[shayan]

I think this is a valid and interesting question, and I hope we get some useful answers here.. but I personally think the market structure is also important, i.e how saturated it is and what not...

also if you know how big your market is I believe to some extend you can think of how much of a market share you can get, and with those two you can obviously estimate how much your company would be worth (on a good day). If your question is to know how much money you can raise, the estimated value of the company will obviously help you a lot. If the market is worth $100M and you will only have a percentage of that market, I doubt you would be able to raise millions of dollars from the VC's, and if you do, you are probably looking to give up a lot of shares.

But if there is a "rule of thumb" I would like to hear it too

[mwerty → shayan]

Looks like you are doing Chinese math: http://www.tjacobi.com/50226711/what_is_chinese_math.php

[kf]

There's nothing inherently wrong with a small market size, especially if you can target a product really well to a niche. But, with my startup, we're hoping for broad mainstream success as we ride the cusp of the exponential that decreases the cost of genetic sequencing by tenfold every year.

On the side, I have a lifestyle business with no intention of scaling, but it's mostly just for fun, I don't make enough money to actually support any kind kind of lifestyle.

[myoung8 → kf]

By lifestyle I guess I meant a business that brings in pretty good money (more than you'd earn at a cushy job), but won't make you filthy rich.