Aspirational Buyer
Just because OpenAI’s revenue is $2B, it doesn’t mean your AI product will resonate with customers.
I spoke to a founder building a model performance analyzer for companies like Mistral, OpenAI, etc. The product is for people good enough to build models but not good enough to assess them. The worldwide TAM (volume) is probably 3-5 people.
Many AI startups will die because they’re selling to enterprise personas that don’t yet exist (at scale). They won’t find product market fit.
The checklist below contains some traits that make bad buyers. *May not apply to bottoms-up go-to-market (GTM) motions or to business-to-consumer (B2C) startups
Limited number of buyers in a limited number of companies
No individual or departmental budget, mostly a cost center
Average sales cycles of 12-24 months
Project management but no project ownership
Not creating (IT, etc), not selling (sales, etc), or not defending (security, etc)
Founders, don’t start building for the customer without quantifying the TAM, finding out if they’re good buyers, or finding out if they exist.