Time Core · Market Timing · Module

Market readiness

Whether the conditions for demand actually exist — awareness of the problem, willingness to pay, and whatever the solution depends on.

The idea

How it works

A market is ready when buyers already know they have the problem. Where they do not, the first entrant pays to teach them and later entrants sell to the educated.

The prerequisites are usually specific and checkable: an enabling technology, a regulatory change, a price point reached, or a behaviour that has become normal.

Working with it

In practice

  1. 01

    Check whether buyers name the problem

    Unprompted. If you have to explain the problem before the solution, the market is not ready.

  2. 02

    List the prerequisites

    What has to exist for this to work. Each is checkable and their absence is the answer.

  3. 03

    Look for existing spending

    Money already being spent badly on the problem is the strongest readiness signal available.

  4. 04

    Distinguish early adopters from the market

    Enthusiasts buy anything interesting. Their purchase is not evidence that the market is ready.

One level in

The components of market readiness

A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.

  1. The problem awareness

    Whether buyers already know they have the problem.

    Learn
  2. The prerequisites

    What has to exist for the solution to work at all.

    Learn
  3. The existing spending

    What is already being spent on the problem today.

    Learn

If you have to explain the problem before the solution, the market is not ready yet.