Sizing a Niche Healthcare Market in 3 Weeks: A Pre-Feasibility Case Study

Background

The founding team had strong early clinical validation for their diagnostic device and a fundraising deadline fast approaching, but no credible market-sizing number to anchor their pitch. No established third-party market report existed for this specific diagnostic sub-category – it was too new and too narrow – which meant the number had to be built from first principles rather than pulled from an industry report, and it had to be ready in weeks, not months.

Objective

Build a defensible, bottom-up market-sizing estimate for the diagnostic sub-category within a compressed three-week timeline, giving the founders a number they could stand behind under investor scrutiny ahead of their fundraising deadline.

Methodology

Constructed a bottom-up addressable-patient-population model based on condition prevalence data, segmented by the specific clinical criteria that would make a patient a realistic candidate for the device.

Mapped the current diagnostic pathway patients go through today, identifying where adoption friction existed and how large a share of the eligible population was actually likely to be reached.

Benchmarked plausible price points against adjacent, already-established diagnostic categories with comparable clinical complexity and reimbursement status.

Conducted a condensed round of clinician interviews specifically to validate assumptions that couldn't be sourced from secondary data – adoption willingness, expected ordering frequency, and perceived barriers.

Built the entire model in a format the founders could re-run themselves as new prevalence or policy data became available, rather than delivering a static, one-time number.

Key Findings

The addressable market was smaller than the founders' initial back-of-envelope estimate, which had over-counted the eligible patient population by not accounting for the specific clinical criteria required for the device to be applicable.

The growth rate was considerably stronger than the founders had assumed, driven by a recent policy shift expanding insurance coverage for early-stage diagnostics within this category.

Clinician interviews revealed adoption friction was less about clinical skepticism and more about workflow integration – a finding that had commercial implications beyond just the market-size number itself.

Price benchmarking against adjacent categories suggested the founders' planned price point was defensible, but only if paired with the reimbursement pathway the policy shift was beginning to enable.

The narrower-but-faster-growing market reframed the investment story from a large-market claim that couldn't be substantiated to a specific, policy-tailwind-driven growth story that was easier to defend under diligence.

Strategic Recommendations

Anchor the fundraising narrative on the policy-driven growth rate rather than the absolute market size, since the growth story was both stronger and more differentiated.

Address workflow-integration friction directly in the go-to-market plan, since clinician interviews identified it as the primary adoption barrier rather than clinical skepticism.

Tie pricing strategy explicitly to the emerging reimbursement pathway rather than treating price as independent of policy developments.

Re-run the bottom-up model on a quarterly basis as prevalence and reimbursement data update, using the model structure already handed over.

Results & Impact

The founders used the report as the market-sizing backbone of their investor deck, reframing their pitch around a smaller but faster-growing, policy-tailwind-backed market. The three-week turnaround meant the fundraising timeline wasn't delayed, and the reusable model let the team update the number themselves as new data emerged.