Market Timing
The strategic consideration of when to enter a market, balancing being early enough for opportunity against being too early when conditions aren't ready.
Also known as: Time to market, Market entry timing, Timing the market
Category: Business & Economics
Tags: startups, entrepreneurship, strategies, timing, markets
Explanation
Market timing in entrepreneurship refers to the critical question of when to launch a product or enter a market. Unlike investment market timing (which is notoriously difficult), startup market timing is about recognizing when enabling conditions align: technology becomes affordable, consumer behavior shifts, regulations change, or distribution channels emerge. Being too early is often as fatal as being too late—many failed startups had the right idea at the wrong time. Google wasn't the first search engine; Facebook wasn't the first social network. They succeeded partly because market conditions had matured. Key timing indicators include: declining costs of enabling technologies, emergence of adjacent successful products, regulatory tailwinds, cultural/behavioral shifts, and distribution channel availability. The challenge is distinguishing between 'early' and 'wrong'—sometimes the market simply won't develop as expected. Successful founders often have insight into why now is different from before, combining historical pattern recognition with understanding of current technological and market shifts. This connects to the idea maze concept: knowing market history helps identify when previous dead ends might now be viable paths.
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