Market & potential
How to measure the real potential of your business idea
Potential isn't a feeling. It is market size times reachability times willingness to pay. Here is how to estimate the upside of a business idea before you build.
Two founders can have ideas that are equally clever, equally validated, and equally well-built — and one builds a €5M business while the other tops out at €50k a year. The difference usually isn't effort or talent. It's potential: how much room the idea has to grow before it hits a ceiling. And potential is something you can estimate roughly before you start, not discover painfully after.
Potential is a multiplication, not a vibe
A useful back-of-envelope formula: how many people have this problem, times how many you can realistically reach, times how much each would pay per year. Three numbers, multiplied. None of them needs to be exact — you're looking for the order of magnitude, not a forecast. Is the ceiling thousands of euros, or millions?
Reachable beats huge
A massive market you have no way to reach is worth zero to you. A smaller market where you know exactly where the customers gather is worth far more. Weight reachability heavily.
The questions that reveal the ceiling
- Is this a problem a few people have intensely, or many people have mildly? Both can work — but they're different businesses.
- Does each customer pay once, or every month? Recurring revenue changes the ceiling completely.
- When you serve one more customer, does it get easier (software) or just as hard (consulting)?
- Is the number of people with this problem growing, flat, or shrinking?
It costs the same emotional energy to chase a small idea as a big one. Make sure you've sized the prize before you start running.
Why we put market potential early in the path
Once your idea passes the first analysis, the IdeasBuenas founder path includes a dedicated market-sizing step. It takes what you've already told us about your customer and helps you turn it into honest size and growth estimates — so you understand the ceiling early, while you can still pivot toward a bigger one. Knowing the upside doesn't guarantee you'll reach it, but not knowing it guarantees surprises.
Start by checking whether the idea is sound at all — then size how far it can go. The first analysis is free and takes minutes.