<p>Hey friends 👋</p><p>You know the pattern — founder shows up with a deck, flips to the TAM slide, and there it is: $53 billion… $67 billion… any enormous number with a B at the end. And everyone in the room nods like it means something.</p><p>It usually doesn’t.</p><p>This week JDM goes solo (Cameron’s out representing the ecosystem and cheering at a pitch competition — we’ll forgive him) to dig into one of his all-time founder pet peeves: the TAM.</p><p>Not the concept — the lazy, hopium-laced, percentage-game version that shows up in almost every pitch deck. The one that mistakes the market your <em>customers</em> are in for the market your <em>product</em> is in. The one that picks 0.1% because it makes the math look reasonable, not because it means anything.</p><p>From a Slack bot claiming a slice of the wrong pie, to a procurement platform that actually did the math (mostly), to an AI tutoring app that averaged its way to a $67B fantasy, JDM runs the conviction scale on three real TAM claims and calls out every shortcut along the way.</p><p>For his lone frivolous thought, he recommends Ben McKenzie’s documentary <em>Everyone Is Lying to You for Money</em> — a deep dive into crypto with strong opinions and receipts to match.</p><p>As always, thanks for listening.</p><p>—JDM & Cam</p><p>Timestamps</p><p>00:00 - Introduction</p><p>02:15 - TAM: what the slide is supposed to answer (and doesn’t)</p><p>05:30 - Scenario 1: The Slack status bot</p><p>12:45 - Scenario 2: Food manufacturer procurement platform</p><p>25:00 - Scenario 3: AI tutoring app for K-12</p><p>40:00 - Frivolous Thoughts</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://zerototraction.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">zerototraction.substack.com</a>