“A big market is great only if you can take a substantial share of that market. If it is so competitive that you can't actually garner market share, it's not actually valuable to you. There's a little bit of a Goldilocks approach — markets that are big enough to create enduring products but where you could still be a relative big fish in a smaller pond.”

Market size is only half the story — competition determines whether you can actually capture any of it

Falzon describes the two-dimensional market assessment framework applied at Mosaic when evaluating acquisitions: market size alone is insufficient. VPNs were avoided because every dollar of user acquisition competed against players spending aggressively. Personal finance was avoided because banks with 10x higher LTVs would always outbid a standalone budgeting app for the same acquisition keywords. The lesson: find markets large enough to build a real business but not so contested that you must outspend incumbents just to exist.