Comparison table
| Problem 1 | Problem 2 | Problem 3 | |
| The problem | Speed vs Quality | Product Intuition | Leadership and Team on the Same Page |
| Evidence strength | 2/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 |
| Current workarounds | Compromises, researching, modeling | Asking AI and colleagues | Slack, Teams, Email, etc. |
| Competitive landscape | Daily standups with engineering teams
Slack/Teams/Gmail Loom for video updates “I have a lot of meetings”
|
Building prototypes and experimenting
“I just go with my gut” “I ask colleagues and brainstorm with AI”
|
Weekly check-in calls with every PM
Demanding reports from employees “I have a lot of meetings”
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| ICP | PMs (specifically those struggling to speed up brainstorming) | New PMs, PMs transitioning from another field (especially engineering) | Leadership (particularly members of leadership who want to streamline communication with employees) and team (especially those who receive unclear instructions from higher-ups) |
| Market Size* | SAM: ~35% of the 575k base, about 200k PMs
SOM: 2% share, ~4,000 |
SAM: ~40% of the base, about 230k PMs
SOM: 2% share, ~4,600 |
SAM: PM leaders only (~10% of PMs, ~120k worldwide), ~60% reachable, ~50% at orgs with 3+ product teams, about 36k leaders
SOM: 4% share over leaders, 1,440 × ~5 team seats ≈ 7,200 PMs (higher share bc it’s less saturated) |
| Buildability | Highly feasible to build due to existing competitors, which simplifies understanding user needs. However, overall buildability is constrained by the need to develop innovative solutions that enhance quality and communication. | Implementation is moderately challenging because the product must serve as an experimental environment that enables teams to collaborate, communicate, and visualize ideas effectively. | While highly buildable and implementable based on clear requirements and key components, potential challenges arise in designing features that strengthen leadership alignment and streamline information flow. |
| AI Fit |
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*By our Week 2 Milestone, TAM is ~1.2M PM and ~$950/year.
Connection to The Reading
The reading argues that an ICP should be “super-specific and super-narrow” and identified by paying attention to which customers get most excited about the problem/solution; this pushed us to move beyond broad titles like “PM” or “CPO” and identify the specific segment experiencing each problem most intensely.
Problem We’re Leaning Towards
We are currently leaning towards combining problems 1 and 2 because, from our interviews, they seem to arise from similar issues. Current approaches to solving both problems focus largely on meetings, which clog PMs’ schedules and leave less time for product implementation. By creating a resource that allows product, sales, and engineering teams to communicate and keep up to date with each other, PMs will both be able to complete the brainstorming process more quickly and better understand leadership’s expectations. One weakness of this idea is that many communication resources already exist and getting PMs to switch to our resource would require a strong value proposition.
