To become a market ‘must-have’, attract superior traction, economics and investors, entrepreneurs must identify the right type of problem to solve.
The ‘right type’ of problem is a root-cause, not a symptom.
Many entrepreneurs focus on symptoms, resulting at best in only an incremental improvement on solutions already offered by the current players.
This positions such entrepreneurs’ offerings as competitive and not creating new market categories.
Entering an existing market space with only a marginally more competitive offering, makes it very difficult to generate any significant economic value, while having a low probability of becoming a dominant player.
Of the thousands of problems out there to solve, it is critical to identify one that, once solved, leads to the creation of a new market category by default. This in turn leads to the superior economics that attracts the smart money.
Occasionally, an entrepreneur fundamentally changes their market space by solving a ‘root-cause’ problem, and makes a whole new way of life possible, birthing a totally new market category – considered the ultimate in entrepreneurial success.
With a command of the fundamentals in this space, TMARA has the unique ability to identify solutions that address root-cause problems, and therefore the ability to create the new market categories that also attract superior investors.
TMARA uses science to help start-up innovators and early-stage investors find their perfect market fit, with the most profound results.
What is Product Market Fit (PMF)?
TMARA can answer this question from 4 perspectives:
Target Market perspective = Product-Market Fit is achieved the moment your new product offering becomes a market MUST HAVE.
Start Up perspective = Product-Market Fit is achieved when your Minimum Viable Product(MVP) satisfies the Minimum Viable Value(MVV) of the market.
Funder perspective = Product-Market Fit is a tipping point (without PMF it is hard to succeed, with PMF it is hard to fail)
Scientific perspective = The moment the activity of attracting and retaining customers is no longer the weakest link or prime constraint.
www.tmaragroup.com
Please listen here first:
All major start-up successes emerge from the Zero-to-One (new value creation) space — the world of true innovation
The next AIRBNB is never another AIRBNB. The next home-run will always overcome a new limitation for the market, and become the king in a new market category – always a Zero-to-One success.
Today, the codified science and its application, equips a start-up jockey with the lens to see and command the Zero-to-One space, enough to create and realize new market value by design, and turn themselves into great entrepreneurs, by default.
UNDERSTANDING TMARA
Early-Stage Investments’ Biggest Secret
Superior investors recognise that early-stage investment success follows a power law distribution, meaning the bulk of returns come from very few of the investments/start-ups in a portfolio, rather than a normal distribution, where the returns from many of the start-ups in a portfolio contribute to the overall return.
Example of Success with a Portfolio of 20 Investments:
One investment may return 100x, while the next best returns 5x and the rest struggled or died – the best investment returns more than the sum of the returns of the rest.
A few iconic early-stage investors are much more successful than others, because they had found ways to leverage the power law.
If only 1 out of 20 could be a big success, but nobody knows which one, then every investment must have the potential to return the entire fund.
Make sure your luck counts!
It is devastating to take a very small stake in a start-up that ended up returning 100x, but the return is far from returning the entire fund.
For example: Mark Andreessen invested $250k in Instagram in 2010, when Facebook bought Instagram 2 years later for $1billion, Andreessen netted $78m – a 312x return. Unfortunately for Andreessen, his fund was $1,5 billion, meaning he needs 19 “Instagrams” just to break even.
For iconic early-stage investors, the winning rule is counter-intuitive: Make sure that every investment can singlehandedly give you your required return on the Full Fund
FINDING 100X INVESTMENTS
Investments with a 100X plus potential, can return the value of the entire fund
Most will not make the cut.
OBSTACLE: Finding 5 is a struggle – forget about finding 10
- Forget finding them all in one vertical
- Forget finding them where everybody agrees (market consensus) – low risk-low return
- Forget finding them as ‘more of the same’ – the red ocean of competition
- Forget finding them as a tech trend – they tend to be more a new market trend
Find a potential new market category king in a big enough market (0 to 1)
Perfect Execution Mindset
OBSTACLE: Sitting on a winner and only to see it fail, when something could have been done, like causing a cash constraint through inaction
- Buffer for Success
- Find the potential new market category kings, and back them with every resource.
FINDING 3-5X INVESTMENTS (the sum of all the returns)
For most early-stage investors’ their rule is more a natural tendency; The required return on the Fund comes from the sum of all the investments (make sure your luck counts).
Many will make the cut, at least 1 out of every 10
OBSTACLE: picking the best from the pack
- Hot Verticals
- Traction
- Jockey/Team
- Avoid being the lead investor
Perfect Execution Mindset
To avoid failure, limit exposure.
OBSTACLE: Losses are unavoidable
- Buffer against potential failure
- Risk avoidance
- Don’t put in too much (run lean)
TMARA INVESTMENTS
Use the TMARA Market Category Generator (MCG) to identify potential new market category kings in big enough zero-to-one markets
Select, Test, Invest
- Select only the unique type of problem, that by default, leads to new market categories
- Test to see if the start-up can reach Product/Market Fit in the new category
- Invest by taking an option (pay for the testing) to enjoy a discount on equity placements at product-market fit, to scale the business (Series A).
Perfect Execution
- Buffer for Success
- Pipeline of four concurrent start-ups with a buffer of new ones to replace any that fail
- Go/No Go tests that set the bar high enough to ensure success or force early failure
- Test Cash – seed
- Growth Cash – late seed
- Scaling Cash – series A
#beamusthave
www.tmaragroup.com
When it comes to Start-ups – New Market Categories Matter.
TMARA brings a completely new approach to finding, creating and funding new market category kings – housed in the Market Category Creator (MCC)
Our MCCs follow a structured market-centric approach.
We are the first to have successfully harnessed the power of ‘first principal’ thinking for start-up innovation (focused exclusively on new market categories) with meticulous execution.
The outcome, is an inclusive package (funds & experts) for start-ups that have the potential to emerge as new market category kings.
- A quick and effective identification of those start-ups with a new market category king profile (potential)
- A clear path to product-category fit (PCF) which is our success criteria
- Experience with more than 400 global start-up companies
TMARA: A new market category is uniquely expressed by a common behaviour
While many start-ups (and investors) look for known problems in a given market, we look for common behaviours (‘coping mechanisms’). The outcome is a new market category route-map. The uniqueness of a new market category immediately stands out, and it allows us an early indication of a potential new market category king. In addition, it strengthens the start-up’s product-category fit execution, which is mandatory in order to successfully embark on a trajectory to become new market category king.
Integrating innovation with common sense: A new win-win business model:
We are the first to have successfully harnessed the power of the first thinking principals for innovation (market adoption) with meticulous execution, and apply it to new market category king creation. The structured approach allows the start-up, a risk-adjusted trajectory towards becoming a new market category king.
Our inclusive package to MCC start-ups includes:
- A structured and transparent process of validation: Viable market, viable product, viable offer, viable traction
- Funding – an average of $250,000 per start-up
It allows us to quickly identify the potential winners, and boost their journey towards actually becoming new market category kings.
MCC Israel go-to-market strategy: Launch in Q3/2022
Our inaugural MCC was launched in South Africa in Q3/2019 and our 2nd MCC in Israel is set to launch in Q3/2022 with up to 6 MCG start-ups joining the initial cohort.
About MCG Israel
MCC Israel (owned by TMARA INTERNATIONAL (UK) leverages the proprietary knowhow, products and services of TMARA INTERNATIONAL in Israel.
TMARA INTERNATIONAL’s vision is for a considerable impact in every major ‘start-up’ city in the world. MCC Israel is led by a hands-on professional management team with experience in creating new market category kings, with strong working relationships in EMEA, USA and Asia.
TMARA INTERNATIONAL continues to develop and commercialise products that support start-ups in their journey to become new market category kings.
Contact details
Ron Striechman, CEO
(M) +972 50-526-9871
Interested to find out whether you can emerge as a new market category king and be considered for an invitation to join the first cohort?
Please make your submission here:
www.tmaragroup.com
If you believe you have the next billion dollar start-up, and are agonising that no else can see it (yet), one critical step will deliver invaluable clarity, TMARA’s product-category fit test.
This proven methodology determines whether your vision truly has the DNA to become the next, big market ‘MUST-HAVE‘ and attract serious funding.
So book here for our next, free one-hour webinar and find out if that strange, burning sensation is genuine entrepreneurship or just the charif you had for lunch
Webinar booking link to be added shortly..
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- TMARA’s MCC (Market Category Creator) prime focus is on co-creating new ‘blue oceans’ (new market categories or sub-categories)
- The reason we focus on them is the superior economics associated with a category KING.
- The type of PROBLEM, that by DEFAULT opens a blue ocean, is a root-cause type of problem called a LIMITATION.
- A ‘limitation’ and the way to cope with the limitation, are two sides of the same coin. Both must exist in reality.
- Our prime objective is to achieve PCF (Product-Category Fit) – the moment the start-up no longer has a market constraint, but an internal constraint to satisfy the demand – ready to start the growth phase before going on to scale the business.
- We have two main phases:
Screening: Is success a potential outcome? We want a green light.
1. Can the start-up’s invention remove a limitation for a big enough market?
2. Can the target market easily adopt the new way / rule?
Testing :
1. We have 8 Gates to assist the start-up to improve its chances of reaching PCF (Product-Category Fit)
2. Each Gate assists the start-up to complete a specific part of the fit in sequence to achieve Product Category Fit finally.
Seems like magic but in reality just common sense.
Dear Early-Stage Investors,
Please listen here first:
See your startup investment’s future market adoption success proven through a scientific product-category test (PCF) process:
In other words, a reliable LEADING indicator of start-up success!
Some background first….
The concept of lagging and leading indicators can assist in understanding TMARA’s playing field (assessing market risk, and accelerating market adoption success towards product-category fit -PCF).
Lagging indicators are typically “output” or momentum-oriented, easy to measure but hard to improve or influence.
Leading indicators, on the other hand, are typically “input” or intrinsic-value-oriented, hard to measure and easy to influence.
Most players in the start-up field unfortunately focus only on Lagging (Momentum)Indicators:
Momentum…
Measures the individual performance of a company, relative to itself and peers, using signals such as product news, hiring activity, partner/customer signings, online sentiment, social media chatter, and mobile & web traffic / downloads, amongst other factors.
Market…
Quantifies the health of the industry in which a company participates based on funding, deals, hiring activities, industry sentiment, investor/acquirer quality, and exit activity.
Money…
Assesses the financial viability of a company, based on projected burn rate, financial history, and investor quality.
TMARA on the other hand, through its scientific product-category fit (PCF) test process, focuses on the Leading (Intrinsic Value) Indicators:
Potential Intrinsic Value:
Assessing to what degree the innovation can indeed overcome a significant limitation for the target market, and reach product-category fit (PCF).
Realizable Value:
If it does overcome a significant limitation, can the market easily change its ways, to extract the full value and become a market MUST-HAVE.
TMARA has found a scientific testing way to assess the leading indicators of innovation market success, and then accelerate market adoption by hitting the market’s sweet spot reliably.
The outcome, is to convert a new innovation’s intrinsic value into a validated ‘MUST-HAVE’ for the market, thereby significantly stacking the odds in favour of the innovators – be they start-up or corporate.
Welcome to www.tmaragroup.com
Let’s assess and accelerate your innovation/investment’s product-category fit (PCF) success, through TMARA’s scientific test process.
#beamusthave