Most investors want big markets. It is the first slide in every deck. Total addressable market. Billions in spend. A wide open field. But some of the most powerful outcomes I have seen came from founders who started small, by design.
Solving for an overlooked user, a hyper-specific regulatory constraint, a sector no one else thought was worth touching. That is where the edge lives.
I have seen this with companies that build back-office tools for state infrastructure. With tools for regulated warehouses. With platforms that serve 5 percent of a sector, but do it with so much precision that the other 95 percent eventually follows.
Big markets attract noise. Small markets require clarity. They force you to define value in tight terms. They make your product stronger, because there is no room to hide behind vanity metrics or broad narratives.
Small markets are often not actually small. They are just misunderstood. Or mispriced. Or written off because they do not look good on a first pitch.
But small markets give founders more space to focus. They let teams learn without the pressure of trend cycles. And they give investors a chance to partner early with people who are building for real problems, not press cycles.
Eventually, if you do it right, the market reveals itself. It is never about market size. It is about product inevitability.
And inevitability is earned by solving something real, no matter how small it looks at first.