The most common reason tech companies fail is market size. You may have heard this referred to as the total addressable market or “TAM”. TAM is generally the first stop for any venture capitalist in evaluating a company because it is so important in trying to predict future success. When we are interviewing for sales roles we aren’t going to run TAM analyses, but we can do some homework on the market opportunity. The reason this is important is obviously the potential for equity value, but also the ability for the company to unlock potential energy that creates forward momentum. When companies have forward momentum, so do their employee’s careers. For example, in my last business, we grew from 9M to 17M to 30M in a three-year span. That growth required more salespeople which required more sales managers, more sales directors, more sales support, & more sales enablement - most of whom came from internal promotions. So joining a company that has the ability to scale up directly correlates with the ability to scale up your own career. There are a couple of easy ways to suss out potential market size:
Evaluating a Sales Role: Market
Evaluating a Sales Role: Market
Evaluating a Sales Role: Market
The most common reason tech companies fail is market size. You may have heard this referred to as the total addressable market or “TAM”. TAM is generally the first stop for any venture capitalist in evaluating a company because it is so important in trying to predict future success. When we are interviewing for sales roles we aren’t going to run TAM analyses, but we can do some homework on the market opportunity. The reason this is important is obviously the potential for equity value, but also the ability for the company to unlock potential energy that creates forward momentum. When companies have forward momentum, so do their employee’s careers. For example, in my last business, we grew from 9M to 17M to 30M in a three-year span. That growth required more salespeople which required more sales managers, more sales directors, more sales support, & more sales enablement - most of whom came from internal promotions. So joining a company that has the ability to scale up directly correlates with the ability to scale up your own career. There are a couple of easy ways to suss out potential market size: