SmarkIt's Market Sizing Approach

My team faced a unique challenge in determining our market size. We debated, on more than one occasion, whether we should be determining the market size of the end users (those who would download our application and use it to find parking) or whether we should determine the market size of available parking spots to implement our technology.

Originally, we were focusing our wedge-in on the city of Boston. In that case, we knew there are approximately 7,300 metered parking spots. We were focusing our initial efforts on determining the market size of end users in this case. However, after a few deliberations, we pivoted and shifted our focus to cities that fit a particular description. In this case, we also shifted our market sizing focus to the municipalities that fit our criteria (cities on the east coast with a population between 100,000 and 750,000 that have metered on-street parking). We will also need to of course do some estimates on an end user market but this will be municipality-specific.

All of that being said, our market sizing approach weighs heavily on a combination of demand and targeted selection of winnable market opportunities. The competition will also of course come into play when municipalities decide whether to implement our technology or choose a different method of upgrading existing metered parking. Of course, residents of cities who do not own cars (think students and young professionals that use public transportation) would not be included, but just about anyone else who has a reason to drive into one of our targeted municipalities would be included in our market size.

The true demand of our product is based on the usage rates of the metered parking spots. Cities without a true "parking problem" will not truly have a demand for our product. On the other hand, cities like Boston would present great demand for SmarkIt.

I should let it be known that our market sizing is based on our initial target market. If steady growth and successful implementations are achieved, then there is no reason to not branch out to all cities with metered parking and a true "parking problem".