Strategy - A Practical Guide for Startup Executives

Gemma Whitehouse - Consultant CTO - Ingeniva Consulting Ltd
Strategy - A practical guide for
Startup Executives
From pre-seed to series A/B

Attribution - every startup founder.. ever.
“So I have a product idea”
Gemma Whitehouse - Ingeniva Consulting Ltd

I tested my product and got some initial customers..
What now?
• Define your customer profile
• Define your total addressable market
• Define your pricing model
• Build some forecasts

Attribution - nearly every startup founder.. ever.
“How do I get investor ready?”

Idea💡
Customers
Time 🕰
Prototypes Product Development
Scaling
Go-to-market
Problem / solution
fi
t
Development of a SaaS startup
MVP Problem /
Solution Fit
Product /
Market Fit
Pre-seed
Seed
Series A +

Phases may be different however for RnD
intensive business sectors.

Defining your market
A guide to Total Addressable Market

Define who your customer is, define what
the product is they will buy, define the
price point, define the number of those
customers in the market…

Attribution - At pre-seed it is very dif
fi
cult to de
fi
ne your TAM so this is always overestimated - by almost every startup founder.. ever.
“Our Total Addressable Market is ”

So I did a Google Search and came up with…
What now?
• Your market is never as big as you think it is.
• Identify a reliable source of market insight.
• Pay for that data if you have to.
• Use an “official” source of data to qualify your assumptions.

Example 1 - A bloody big market - Insurance Industry USA
So I’m building a SaaS Product for Independent Life Insurance Agents in the US - the industry was worth 1.1 trillion
in 2022 and has grown by 1.9% per year.
So your solution is software for Independent
Insurance agents?
Doesn’t your solution target independent health
insurance agents?
….and 32% of all insurance agencies in the US were small… with
revenue less than $150,000 per year…will they be able to pay enterprise
software fees?
Doesn’t your solution target small agencies?
100 % = 1,588,000
56 % = 902,500
32 % = 288800
??

Example 2 - A bloody small market - luxury consumables - Norway.
100 %
45 %
40%
50%
30%
Target group urban women 20-40 years of age in Norway who purchase luxury consumables
Of all the women who live in Norway 45% live in Urban areas
Of all those women on 40% have purchasing patterns which
purchase luxury consumables
Of all those women only 50% are aged between 20-40 years old
Of those women only 30% demonstrate active engagement with similar
products to your o
ff
ering
There are 2.6 million women in Norway
2.7%
So our Total Addressable Market is under 3%!!!

You will need to successfully achieve a 15-20%
share of market or your business will die.

Defining your strategy
A guide to tackling Product and Business Strategy

Attribution - *almost* every startup founder.. ever.
“OMG our market really is much smaller
than I thought it was”

So you won’t sell enough to appeal to investors
What now?
• Consider internationalisation/other markets for your product.
• Consider pivoting the product proposition.
• Consider what other customer profiles might use your product.
• Consider your pricing.
• Use data and generate forecasts to model your assumptions.

Define who your customer is, define what the product is they
will buy, define the price point, define the number of those
people in the market, then define how you will reach them.
If there aren’t enough of those people in the market, you
need to reconsider your strategy.

Other aspects that affect strategy
A guide to tackling hard truths

Truth: No business is successful across all
segments. Apple will never make a budget
iPhone. Lidl will never enter the luxury
goods market.

Truth: Monopolies block markets.

Truth: Your proposition needs to solve a hard customer
motivator. Convenience is not a hard motivator.
Making and loosing money is.
Being legal is.

So I swallowed some hard truths…
What now?
• Make sure your position is defensible.
• Make sure you track your sales data and show forecasts for customer
acquisition.
• Make sure you have good data to demonstrate product engagement and fit
for customers.
• Make sure all these figures stack up against your TAM and forecasts.

Finally…Starting a business is hard, I have been there and
done it. I wish good luck, to every startup founder… ever.
Gemma Whitehouse - Consultant CTO - gemma@ingeniva.co

Gemma is a consultant CTO and Business
Developer with many years experience and a
passion for building software solutions for highly
compliant environments. Whether you’re a big
corporate or a wildly scaling startup I am sure I can
help you.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/gemma-whitehouse

Strategy - A Practical Guide for Startup Executives

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