There’s a useful trick for estimating market size: look at what a single module of the workflow is worth, then reason about the whole.

If the accounting sub-module of a professional workflow raises at a billion-dollar valuation, what does that imply about the full workflow? Accounting is typically one of eight or ten distinct workstreams in a complex deal process. It’s important, but it’s not the whole picture.

The implied math is rough but useful. If investors are pricing the accounting module alone at a billion dollars — based on their estimates of revenue potential, win rates, and expansion — the full workflow is almost certainly addressable at a significantly larger number. Not necessarily ten times larger (modules vary in complexity and willingness to pay), but meaningfully larger.

This isn’t a rigorous calculation. It’s a directional signal. When you see a specialist in one slice of a workflow raise at unicorn valuation, the market is telling you something about the total size of the workflow opportunity.

The flip side is also true. When a module raises at modest valuation or struggles to find product-market fit, that’s a signal about that specific workstream — not necessarily about the whole workflow. Some slices of complex processes are genuinely more valuable than others.

The module valuation trick is most useful when you’re evaluating whether to build for a workflow where you don’t have great market size data. Rather than trying to calculate the TAM from first principles, look at what the specialist sub-module companies are worth. Those valuations encode investor research about real willingness to pay.

The module valuations are your market data. +++