Skip to main content
Expert Insights & Summary
Expert Insights
Achintya Krishna on Opportunity Evaluation
- Began with sports video drills for grassroots athletes—discovered a gap in structured digital coaching.
- Added tournament registration to solve a real need but found it low-margin and logistically complex.
- Evaluated each feature by its scalability and market traction—key to opportunity filtering.
- Pivoted to interactive drills using computer vision (pose, ball, and rim tracking)—a scalable tech solution.
- Explored gamification and fitness modules to broaden market relevance beyond basketball.
- Emphasized value of early prototypes—even if flawed—as tools for discovery and validation.
- Realized opportunity evaluation is continuous: listen to users, test fast, and adapt based on data.
Zooming Out with Mayank Nagori
- Started Good Gum with a small SKU but big ambition: a biodegradable, healthy gum.
- “Zoomed out” to evaluate the bigger market gap—not just chewing gum but healthy impulse consumption.
- Noticed gum’s high value-to-volume ratio—ideal for India’s fragmented, low-cost retail.
- Repositioned gum from candy to post-meal dental wellness, creating a habit-forming use case.
- Ignored the "TAM trap"—focused instead on building a new category with storytelling and distinct branding.
- Aimed to evolve into functional gums—energy, vitamins—to capture daily routines.
- Zooming out helped shift from product obsession to solving a lifestyle problem with long-term potential.
Market Check: Are We Really Solving a Problem?
- Team began with workshops on debate, public speaking, and study skills for school students.
- Constantly tested the problem-solution fit via interviews, surveys, and small pilots.
- Found validation in parents’ aspirations and students’ lack of structured support in these areas.
- Measured success through engagement, feedback, and willingness to pay—key market checkpoints.
- Tweaked content and delivery formats based on classroom response, not assumptions.
- Used effectuation: started with available networks, co-created with partners, kept risk affordable.
- Proved that solving a problem means continuously checking—are we relevant, differentiated, and valuable?
Payoshni on Opportunity Evaluation
- Motivated by gender equity—started with deep user research (300+ women surveyed).
- Validated need through conversations with corporates: hiring isn’t the problem, retention is.
- Identified “double duty” (home + work pressure) as a key driver of female attrition.
- Spotted a whitespace—no one was solving post-hire engagement for women.
- Evaluated opportunity by triangulating user pain, buyer readiness, and competitor gaps.
- Positioned solution as retention-centric: mentoring, re-onboarding, and workplace support.
- Showed that opportunity evaluation needs structured research, empathy, and market insight—not just ideas.
Summary

No Comments