Finance & Operations

Are you targeting a billion dollar market? A Guide to Determining Your Market Size [Interactive]

May 17, 2017

Whether you’re searching for product-market fit, trying to prioritize the next market segment to target or looking to launch a new product, you first need to understand how large the market is. The problem: sizing up your market can be confusing and time consuming, especially if market sizing is not your full-time job. It’s a pain to find the right data sources and then to make sense of that data to answer your specific questions. What if there was a fast and easy way to get insights from a trusted source on the number of companies in a market, how many people they employ and how fast they’re expected to grow?

Well, now there is. We’re thrilled to introduce OpenView’s quick market sizing calculator as well as our downloadable market sizing tool. Simply make selections on which industries you want to go after and your target company size (i.e. very small business, SMB, midmarket, enterprise). We will then do the calculations for you, bringing together US Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data into an intuitive interface.

We hope that these assets help you bring data into the pressing strategy, sales, marketing and product decisions you face as you grow your business. As always, please leave any feedback and suggestions in the comments!

Size your target market. Access the tool now.

Market Sizing Tool

What we learned in this process

As you may have already encountered, the way the government classifies industries (NAICS) is delightfully archaic. Even their website for explaining the system looks like it’s from the Lycos days of the internet. Here are three fun facts we learned in the process of developing our market sizing tool:

  1. The government reports data on extremely niche sub-sectors like ‘Leather and Allied Product Manufacturing’ (NAICS 316), while excluding large, high-growth industries.
  1. For instance, there is NOT a sub-sector for Software – let alone Software-as-a-Service. Instead, these categories are rolled up as a sub-sub-sector under ‘Publishing Industries (except Internet)’ (NAICS 511).
  1. Software publishing in Idaho had receipts of only $185.6 million in 2012; however, it’s now growing rapidly. (OpenView’s former portfolio company Balihoo is based in Boise).
Kyle Poyar

Partner at OpenView

Kyle helps OpenView’s portfolio companies accelerate top-line growth through segmentation, value proposition, packaging & pricing, customer insights, channel partner programs, new market entry and go-to-market strategy.