Total Addressable Market

Total Addressable Market is the full-name form of the concept Kyle tags as TAM across his company-building and investing notes — see that page for the synthesis. The recurring theme there is that a market’s size is not fixed but a function of imagination and execution: in The Everything Store, Kyle tags the Jeff Bezos line “Sometimes there are small markets. And sometimes there are small minds,” and Datadog is the worked example of TAM expansion (“TAM expanded every six months”).

The related TAM Arbitrage page captures the investing corollary drawn from Coatue: doing the work to understand a market is bigger than others appreciate lets you pay up and tolerate more burn. This page exists mainly to resolve the long-form spelling of the abbreviation to the canonical TAM concept.

Context: Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the standard venture/strategy metric for the total revenue opportunity available for a product or service if it captured 100% of its market — often paired with SAM (serviceable addressable market) and SOM (serviceable obtainable market).

Where this appears

• TAM — the canonical concept page (Bezos “small minds” line, Datadog TAM expansion, Software TAM sibling)
• TAM Arbitrage — the Coatue investing lesson built on understanding a market is bigger than others appreciate