Consider two applications for the same industrial platform. One sits in a large market, but demands a redesign, a new production route, long qualification, and entry through entrenched suppliers. The other is smaller. Its operating problem is specific, the technical change is limited, and a reachable buyer can define an acceptance test.
The larger application may hold more value over time. The smaller one may be the better starting point. Those are separate judgments.
Compare the route, not only the destination
- Reason to change
- How severe, frequent, and costly is the present problem?
- Route to a decision
- Can the team reach the relevant roles, standards, and qualification process?
- Validation burden
- How much work separates the current result from accepted performance in use?
- Position created
- Which production knowledge, references, and follow-on applications would success unlock?
Research on opportunity selection distinguishes market potential from the difficulty of capturing value. Deep technologies add another constraint: two applications that look adjacent in a market map can require different engineering programmes.
The choice of application therefore sets performance targets, qualification work, production routes, partner needs, and experiments. It is also a development choice.
A first-market candidate should fall in rank when the relevant buyer cannot be reached, the acceptance threshold cannot be stated, or qualification effectively requires a new platform for one use.
Some technologies need scale from the outset because a facility or qualification programme carries a high fixed cost. In that case, the required market floor belongs in the investment case as an explicit assumption. A headline forecast cannot substitute for it.
Choose the first application that builds the strongest position for the ones that follow. Size decides less than sequence.
Sources
- Shepherd and Gruber, The Lean Startup Framework, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2021.
- Myers, Albats, Kozlova and Yeomans, Initial opportunity selection for deep technologies, Technovation 151, 2026.