Ten plausible markets, and still no market strategy

The first adjacent-market workshop often produces an encouraging whiteboard. A coating could reduce wear in several industries. A sensor principle could improve many machines. A fabrication process could serve dozens of product families.

This is useful exploration. It is not yet priority.

Research on market choice sets supports comparing alternatives before committing. It also found diminishing returns from adding more options. Work on deep technology adds a practical complication: applications that look adjacent on a market map can require very different technical development.

For each option, I would put four facts on one page:

1. The operating problem and the reason someone would change current practice.
2. The buying system and the organization's realistic route into it.
3. The distance from today's proof to the evidence required for adoption.
4. The capabilities and future options created if the application succeeds.

The third point is easy to understate. Choosing an application also sets performance targets, qualification work, production routes, partner requirements and the next experiments. Market selection becomes a development decision whether the team acknowledges it or not.

Exploration should continue while another option changes the comparison or exposes a materially different uncertainty. Once new entries merely lengthen the list, the search has reached its useful limit.

The remaining options do not have to be discarded. They can be preserved without receiving the same attention as the current priority. The active portfolio then has four clear treatments:

• pursue with resources now;
• run one test that could change the ranking;
• preserve without active development;
• stop.

A portfolio becomes a strategy when some plausible options lose the right to current resources.