Market Opportunity Scoring: How to Prioritize Which Ideas to Pursue

You have five ideas. All seem promising. Which one should you actually pursue? Here's how to systematically score market opportunities so you stop second-guessing yourself.

Why Scoring Matters

The Problem: Most founders choose ideas based on:

• Personal interest ("I'm passionate about this")
• Recency bias ("I just experienced this problem")
• Confirmation bias ("My friends think it's great")

The Result: Months or years spent building products for markets that can't sustain a business.

The Solution: Score opportunities across multiple dimensions to make evidence-based decisions.

The Market Opportunity Scorecard

Score each opportunity 1-10 across these dimensions:

1. Market Size (Weight: 20%)

What You're Evaluating: Is the total addressable market (TAM) large enough to support a venture-scale business?

Scoring:

• 10: TAM >$10B with strong growth
• 7-9: TAM $1-10B with moderate growth
• 4-6: TAM $100M-$1B with steady growth
• 1-3: TAM <$100M or declining

How to Calculate TAM:

• Number of potential customers × Average revenue per customer
• Example: 500K potential SMBs × $5K/year = $2.5B TAM

Red Flag: TAM <$100M makes it nearly impossible to build a venture-scale business, even if you dominate.

2. Problem Severity (Weight: 20%)

What You're Evaluating: How painful is the problem you're solving?

Scoring:

• 10: Mission-critical, causes major revenue/cost impact
• 7-9: Significant pain, but business continues without solution
• 4-6: Annoying but tolerable
• 1-3: Nice-to-have, low priority

How to Assess:

Ask target customers:

• "On a scale of 1-10, how painful is this problem?"
• "What's the cost (time/money) of this problem?"
• "How often do you experience this?"
• "Have you tried to solve it? What did you try?"

Validation Signals:

• 70%+ rate pain as 7+ out of 10
• Problem occurs weekly or more
• Current solutions are expensive workarounds
• Multiple failed attempts to solve it

3. Market Timing (Weight: 15%)

What You're Evaluating: Is now the right time for this solution?

Scoring:

• 10: Perfect timing (enabling tech mature, behavior shift happening)
• 7-9: Good timing (trend accelerating, competitors validating)
• 4-6: Slightly early or late (need to educate market)
• 1-3: Too early (tech not ready) or too late (market saturated)

Timing Indicators:

Too Early:

• Requires behavior change that hasn't started
• Enabling technology isn't mature enough
• Regulatory environment not ready

Perfect Timing:

• Behavior change is accelerating
• Enabling technology recently matured
• Competitors getting traction validates market

Too Late:

• Market dominated by 2-3 major players
• Growth is slowing or negative
• Commoditization has begun

Example: AI Products in 2024

• Perfect timing: OpenAI democratized access
• Behavior shift: People now expect AI features
• Enabling tech: APIs make integration easy
• Timing Score: 9/10

4. Competitive Intensity (Weight: 15%)

What You're Evaluating: Can you realistically compete and win market share?

Scoring:

• 10: No direct competitors, adjacent competitors are weak
• 7-9: Few competitors, significant gaps in their offerings
• 4-6: Moderate competition, need strong differentiation
• 1-3: Market dominated by strong incumbents

Competitive Analysis:

Count competitors:

• Direct: Same solution, same customer
• Indirect: Different solution, same problem
• Substitute: Alternative ways customers solve the problem

Assess incumbent strength:

• Market share concentration (top 3 control >70% = high intensity)
• Brand strength and loyalty
• Switching costs and lock-in
• Network effects

Identify gaps:

• What do customers complain about?
• Which segments are underserved?
• What features are missing?
• Where are incumbents slow to innovate?

5. Defensibility (Weight: 10%)

What You're Evaluating: If you succeed, can you build a moat to protect your position?

Scoring:

• 10: Multiple strong moats possible (network effects, data, brand)
• 7-9: One strong moat or several moderate moats
• 4-6: Moat requires significant scale or time
• 1-3: Easily replicable, hard to defend

Types of Moats:

Network Effects: Product improves as more users join Data Moat: Proprietary data that competitors can't replicate Brand: Strong emotional connection or trust Switching Costs: Expensive or difficult to change providers Economies of Scale: Unit costs decrease significantly with volume Regulatory: Licenses or compliance that create barriers

Question to Ask: "If we succeed, what prevents a well-funded competitor from copying us?"

6. Path to First Dollar (Weight: 10%)

What You're Evaluating: How quickly can you generate revenue to validate product-market fit?

Scoring:

• 10: Can get paying customers in <30 days
• 7-9: Can get paying customers in 1-3 months
• 4-6: Need 3-6 months to first revenue
• 1-3: Need 6+ months (long sales cycles, complex product)

Consider:

• Sales cycle length
• Product complexity (MVP vs. full build)
• Regulatory requirements
• Required integrations

Why This Matters: Faster revenue = faster validation = lower risk. Long paths to revenue increase failure probability.

7. Founder-Market Fit (Weight: 10%)

What You're Evaluating: Are you uniquely positioned to win in this market?

Scoring:

• 10: Deep domain expertise + network + unfair advantage
• 7-9: Relevant experience and strong interest
• 4-6: Can learn the market with effort
• 1-3: No experience, no interest, no advantage

Assess:

• Do you have 5+ years in this industry?
• Do you have a network in this space?
• Do you deeply understand the customer?
• Do you have technical expertise needed?
• Are you passionate about this problem?

Why This Matters: Founder-market fit increases execution speed, customer trust, and persistence through challenges.

The Scoring Calculation

Formula:

Total Score = (Market Size × 0.20) + (Problem Severity × 0.20) + (Market Timing × 0.15) + (Competitive Intensity × 0.15) + (Defensibility × 0.10) + (Path to First Dollar × 0.10) + (Founder-Market Fit × 0.10)

Example Scorecard:

| Criterion | Weight | Score (1-10) | Weighted Score | |

-| | Market Size | 20% | 8 | 1.6 | | Problem Severity | 20% | 9 | 1.8 | | Market Timing | 15% | 7 | 1.05 | | Competitive Intensity | 15% | 6 | 0.9 | | Defensibility | 10% | 7 | 0.7 | | Path to First Dollar | 10% | 8 | 0.8 | | Founder-Market Fit | 10% | 9 | 0.9 | | Total | 100% | — | 7.75 |

Interpretation:

• 9-10: Exceptional opportunity, high priority
• 7-8: Strong opportunity, worth pursuing
• 5-6: Moderate opportunity, proceed with caution
• <5: Weak opportunity, consider alternatives

Comparing Multiple Opportunities

Example: Scoring 3 Ideas

| Criterion | Idea A: AI Email | Idea B: SMB CRM | Idea C: Dev Tool | |

--|

| | Market Size | 9 | 7 | 6 | | Problem Severity | 7 | 8 | 9 | | Market Timing | 9 | 6 | 8 | | Competitive Intensity | 5 | 4 | 7 | | Defensibility | 6 | 7 | 8 | | Path to First Dollar | 8 | 6 | 9 | | Founder-Market Fit | 7 | 9 | 8 | | Total Weighted Score | 7.4 | 6.7 | 7.8 |

Decision: Pursue Idea C (Dev Tool) first.

Why:

• Highest overall score
• Excellent problem severity and path to revenue
• Strong defensibility
• Lower competitive intensity than AI email

Advanced Scoring Techniques

Adjust Weights for Your Goals

If raising VC funding:

• Increase weight: Market Size (30%), Defensibility (15%)
• Decrease weight: Path to First Dollar (5%)

If bootstrapping:

• Increase weight: Path to First Dollar (20%), Founder-Market Fit (15%)
• Decrease weight: Market Size (15%)

If industry expertise is crucial:

• Increase weight: Founder-Market Fit (20%)
• Decrease weight: Market Size (15%)

Add Risk Factors

Score additional dimensions:

• Technical Risk: How hard is this to build?
• Regulatory Risk: How complex is compliance?
• Execution Risk: How operationally intensive?
• Go-to-Market Risk: How expensive is customer acquisition?

Scenario Analysis

Score your opportunity under different scenarios:

• Best Case: Everything goes right
• Base Case: Most likely outcome
• Worst Case: Challenges materialize

If even the base case scores >7, it's promising.

How MaxVerdic Validates Your Scores

Scoring requires data. MaxVerdic helps you validate your assumptions by:

• Measuring problem severity through frequency and urgency of complaints
• Assessing competitive intensity by analyzing competitor mentions and sentiment
• Validating market timing by tracking conversation volume trends
• Testing founder-market fit by revealing how your target market actually discusses problems

Validate your opportunity scores →

Common Scoring Mistakes

1. Overweighting Personal Interest Passion matters, but it can't compensate for weak market fundamentals.

2. Ignoring Low Scores A single 2/10 score (especially in Market Size or Problem Severity) is often fatal, even if other scores are high.

3. Scoring Without Data Gut feel isn't scoring. Interview 10+ potential customers before finalizing scores.

4. Overconfidence in Founder-Market Fit Domain expertise helps, but doesn't guarantee success. Score honestly.

5. Not Revisiting Scores Markets change. Rescore quarterly to ensure you're still pursuing the right opportunity.

When to Pivot vs. Persevere

Pivot if:

• Total score drops below 6 after honest reassessment
• Problem severity scores <6 (weak demand)
• Market size is shrinking
• Competitive intensity increases drastically

Persevere if:

• Total score >7 and improving
• Early customers validate problem severity
• You're making measurable progress
• Timing is improving (market maturing)

Your Next Steps

1. List your top 3-5 ideas - Be exhaustive, include everything you're considering
2. Score each opportunity - Use the framework above with honest assessments
3. Gather validation data - Use MaxVerdic to test your assumptions
4. Calculate weighted scores - Adjust weights based on your goals
5. Choose your top opportunity - Commit fully to the highest-scoring idea

For more insights on evaluating opportunities, check out our guides on market sizing frameworks and problem-solution fit testing.

Ready to validate your market opportunity scores with real data? Try MaxVerdic and turn assumptions into evidence.

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