Build a credible market analysis

You don't need a €5,000 study. What a funder expects is an honest analysis, sourced and tied to your project. Here's the method to produce it yourself.

The market analysis is the section where founders give themselves away the most. Either it's empty ("the market is huge"), or it's padded with global figures unrelated to the real activity. A good funder spots both in seconds. The goal isn't to impress, but to prove you know your ground.

1. Define the right market

Your market isn't "restaurants in France." It's your real catchment area: the neighborhood, the town, the radius your customers will actually come from or order within. Start small and specific. A well-defined local market is more credible than a vague national one.

2. Estimate size bottom-up

Rather than starting from a national figure carved up by guesswork, start from the ground: number of potential customers × purchase frequency × average basket. This "bottom-up" approach gives a figure you can defend line by line, because every assumption is explicit.

Why bottom-up reassures

A top-down figure ("1% of a €10bn market") proves nothing: why 1% and not 0.1%? Bottom-up shows your reasoning. Even a modest estimate is credible — and credibility beats a big hollow number.

3. Identify the trends in your favor

Two or three trends are enough, provided they're tied to your activity and sourced: shifts in consumption habits, regulation, local demographics. Avoid "gadget" trends that have no concrete effect on your sales.

4. Source it to be credible

Every key figure must be traceable to a serious source: national statistics, sector observatories, trade studies, your chamber of commerce. A figure with no source is one your reader will, at best, ignore — at worst, hold against you.