Early stadium founders simply cannot escape the concept of the existence of an overall addressed market to start them to disrupt and conquer. But Index Ventures’ partner Jahanvi sardana It has a reminder of all those founders who are concerned about finding TAM about their product or service: many newly established businesses have emerged from markets that, then, were virtually non -existent.
“What was the search market before Google?” Sardana asked the audience at TechCrunch’s 2025 All Stage Event in Boston, which took place earlier this month. “What was the purchase of operating systems before Microsoft or the Purchase for Cloud before Amazon?”
Sardana compares Tam with surfing. Every few years, there are huge founders of the waves have to lead – came to the internet for the first time, then the mobile wave, then the cloud, and now, he said, the biggest wave of all: artificial intelligence.
“Have you shaped the right product to drive this wave?” Continue. “This is what we call the product market.”
In which bucket tam are you?
Sardana places the TAM in three bins: a well -known market, emerging market and invisible market.
The first, well -known market, already exists, and when a founder seeks to replace a legacy and has to prove to an investor because the starting idea is better.
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“Everyone brushing their teeth,” he said. “You have to tell me why you are building a better toothbrush.”
The emerging market is when a particular market sector uses a product and it is possible to proceed.
“Think of non -alcoholic beer before it becomes cool,” Sardana said.
Then there is the invisible market, which Sardana calls “the biggest trap” and “also a little dark art”.
The market does not exist and a founder must essentially create one and provide investors evidence of how innovative they can be.
“Think of smartphones in 2006, no one knew they wanted them and changed the world,” he said later, adding that “people don’t know what they are looking for and sometimes you have to show them what is possible.”
The audience at every stage, many of whom are founders of early stage, Sardana pepper with questions, largely about what investors want to see. For example, investors want to see a TAM slide on a deck?
“It’s okay to create this slide and talk about the math behind your Tam,” Sardana said, though she added that sometimes investors are disturbed when the founders are very much based on industry measurements instead of having their own unique insight. Sardana also warned the founders not to rely too much on industry reports. If a founder is overly dependent on an external service to dictate how they think about the market, he may signal that they have not thought deeply about the market they are trying to build, he commented.
“How’s Tam in the markets, especially big markets?” asked a member of the audience.
“Well, this question hurts,” Sardana said. After all, the index has just passed to Airbnb, believing that Tam was very small.
“The reality is that Airbnb has created a completely new stock, which is now larger than some of the largest hotel brands, and this has led to a major change in behavior of how people travel,” he said, adding that Marketplace Tams are difficult. “You want to focus, again, what is the unlocking of the offer and once you unlock the offer. How will the behavior change?”
The public also asked Sardana what makes a company stand out in an investor like herself.
A tough one, said Sardana, but a very important one. After all, if a founder can understand who the customer is and why they are willing to buy his product, then a company should have no problem standing for investors, he added.
“We are in the business of rating the founders more than purchases or products or whatever,” he said. “When you talk about your purchase, it’s really a lens in your ambition.”
