The Hidden Intersection that is Your SOM

It’s human nature to look through the lens of a single subject. As a society there’s been a shift to specialists and away from generalists. We look at the body as discrete systems. We see doctors that specialize in one organ. We learn from professors that have deep knowledge about one subject. But when we only focus on that one thing, it’s easy to lose track of everything else and we can start to view the world through that single lens. To oversimplify it: When you’re a hammer, all you see are nails. 

The problem with this, though, is that we, as humans, are multifaceted. It’s very rare that we would define ourselves by one single thing and one single thing alone. You probably have many interests, hobbies, and characteristics – you probably have many roles that fall outside of Founder, CEO, or Investor. 

What’s more interesting to me – personally, as a functional nutritionist, and as an interim marketing/product/sales ops advisor to startups – are the connections and intersections of all of these elements. The interplay and interconnectedness is the space I love most … trying to figure out what that center of the Venn diagram looks like. That’s where it’s at. 

One of the most underutilized – and often, fairly inaccurate – intersections that we’ve seen Founders go light on in their pitch deck is the Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM). A SOM should be representative of the intersections that represent the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) while also being that distillation down of the Total Addressable Market (TAM) and Serviceable Available Market (SAM). 

We often see SOMs that are too broad, not well-defined, and that don’t account for more than 1-2 elements of the target market. Here’s an over-simplified example of what we’ve seen based on the (very made up) premise of an AI-enabled app that seeks to provide solutions for perimenopausal symptoms: 

• TAM that represents all women 

• SAM that represents women over the age of 40 

• SOM that represents women with perimenopause 

Before digging into the SOM, I just want to take a sidebar here and say: Women are a population (we’re 51% of the total population), not a market. Start with a more realistic TAM and SAM. Back to SOM. 

For this example, your SOM is not every perimenopausal woman. It’s every perimenopausal woman that:

1) has symptoms problematic enough to look for outside interventions (this is not every woman with perimenopause)

and would be willing to 

2) seek advice from an app or use a health-related app 

3) use AI for health advice

4) pay for an app 

The juicy center of that 4-way Venn diagram is your SOM. Yes, it requires more effort and research to get and, yes, it’s much smaller than the broad strokes of all perimenopausal women. But, it’s also more accurate. 

Why do I have such a bee in my bonnet about SOM? Because if you don’t get the TAM, SAM, SOM right, there’s a good chance your ICP is not defined well enough, your positioning is problematic, your commercialization and go-to-market plans aren’t where they should be, the financial projections you’ve identified based on it may not be accurate … it creates a cascade of things slowly going sideways – sort of like the difference between walking in a straight line and walking that same path just 1 or 2 degrees off and ending up not quite where you wanted to be. Sometimes that difference is noticeable but not meaningful; sometimes that difference can put you waaaay off the mark. Ultimately, though, it signals to an investor you haven’t done your homework well enough. 

Your SOM can be a powerful foundational number. If you’ve really dug into it to define it well, you’ve probably also learned some useful things about your target market and ICP(s), and you might have even gotten some early perspectives on positioning and commercialization strategies (like which channel(s) may be most meaningful to your ICP). If at the end of the TAM/SAM/SOM exercise you realize the revenue potential for your business isn’t as large as you’d hoped, it’s a great opportunity to re-evaluate the problem you're trying to solve and the population you’re trying to provide a solution for, your solution and the value that solution has to your ICP, pricing strategies, and your innovation roadmap. By leaning in to the intersections that create a more well-defined SOM, you can help lay a stronger foundation for financial and commercialization metrics, which is a win-win for your business and the investors hearing your pitch.