A market is ready for a launch decision when four questions have evidence behind them: who has the problem, how the need appears, which participants can serve it, and whether there is a credible path from discovery to action. A large addressable-market estimate alone answers none of those questions.

Start with one decision, not an entire industry

Write a decision sentence before collecting data: “Should we build a discovery Market for this category and geography, aimed at this buyer task?” Record the current alternative: a smaller pilot, a different segment, or no launch. This keeps research from becoming a catalogue of interesting facts without a decision owner.

Gate 1 — the buyer problem

Collect specific buying situations: what triggers the search, what must be compared, and what makes a provider credible. Interview notes, public requests, service pages and repeated search language can reveal different parts of the picture. Keep inferred demand separate from direct buyer evidence. If the problem cannot be described without vague labels such as “digital transformation,” narrow the scope.

Gate 2 — observable demand

Map actual discovery paths: category queries, participant-name queries, referrals and direct approaches. Search impressions can show that pages were displayed; they do not prove that buyers are ready to purchase. A useful test is whether several distinct intents lead to meaningful decisions that existing resources handle poorly.

Gate 3 — participant supply

Build a small source-linked sample of providers or products. Capture the service offered, geography, eligibility, proof pages and last checked date. If the supposed category has too few relevant participants, or its members are indistinguishable to buyers, a full Market may be premature. This is a data-readiness question as much as a sales question.

Gate 4 — a route to action

Sketch the path from discovery to a useful next step: comparison, enquiry, referral, booking or purchase on a participant site. Note who owns each step and how it would be measured. A discovery asset that cannot help a user advance a decision has no reason to grow merely because content can be generated.

Make a decision with visible uncertainty

A Launch Case can record a proceed, narrow, test-first or stop verdict, with the assumptions that would reverse it. The public Serbia Finance Market sample on the 1000&1 Launch page shows this decision-first framing and separates evidence from confidential commercial inputs. It is a model for recording uncertainty, not evidence that another category will perform the same way.

If the gates support a bounded first wave, define the first categories, participant sample, source rules and measurement events. The resulting Market can then be maintained as evidence changes. If one gate fails, the economical next step is to test that gate rather than build a large site.