your analysts are wasting $25k

$6k of effort wasted

Hi there,

A few weeks ago, we highlighted that we’re contemplating making software to create market maps.

We asked you how valuable software to do this would be.

The response was overwhelmingly positive.

So we’re building a Market Map Maker. Here are some high-level wireframes on how the Market Map Maker will work.

A world full of unicorns

We mapped the locations of private companies currently valued at $1B+ that are based outside of the US. We also charted the share of unicorns that have been added to the club each year since 2013 by location (US vs. non-US).

Outside the US, China has far and away the greatest number of private unicorn companies, at 55 total.

The most painful part of making a market map

We also asked you what the most painful part of making a market map was. Here is the breakdown of your responses.

We talked to a handful of our clients after and learned that, on average, it takes 3 weeks just to identify relevant companies and classify companies for a market map.

Assuming an analyst is paid $100k all-in, that works out to $6000 just to do one market map. And this is not to mention the opportunity cost of having a smart analyst sitting around Googling for info to feed the market map.

This also doesn’t consider the additional time finding logos using Google image search (this was hated by everyone) and trying to make the market map look good.

So doing 4 market maps per year is likely $25k of analyst time wasted.

On top of that, there is no way to keep the market map fresh, i.e. it’s a point-in-time snapshot.

Generally, market maps were regarded as important in helping teams understand emerging industry landscapes but also a royal pain in the arse.

Would love feedback on the parts of the market map-making process you hate most.

And again, here are our Market Map Maker wireframes. We’ll be launching this soon as part of CB Insights.

Active in Southeast Asia

We looked at Southeast Asia’s most active tech acquirers since 2012. Philippines-based tech solutions company Xurpas tops the list with six acquisitions of Southeast Asian tech firms.