A popular market attracts businesses trying to win the same customer. Another useful question is what all those businesses need in order to operate. Tools, infrastructure and services can sit around an opportunity rather than competing at its centre.
Observe the recurring task
Look for work people repeat while pursuing the opportunity: quoting, coordinating, measuring, fulfilling or managing risk. A task becomes interesting when it is frequent, costly enough to matter and poorly served by the current alternatives.
The existence of a growing market does not prove that every supporting tool will succeed. You still need a buyer, a budget and a reason to change from what they already use.
Find the existing workaround
Ask someone to show you how they perform the task today. Spreadsheets, email chains and manual reconciliation can reveal needs, but they also reveal flexibility that a new product must preserve. Do not mistake an unattractive interface for an unworkable process.
Understand which part causes the most difficulty. A tool that replaces the entire workflow may create more adoption work than a smaller product that fixes one painful handoff.
Test willingness to switch
A positive reaction to a demo is weaker evidence than a real trial with real data and a named owner. Define the result the pilot should produce, how much help it requires and what would justify paying for continued use.
Examine the dependency
A supporting business can depend heavily on another platform, industry or distribution channel. Map that dependency before treating the opportunity as safer than serving end customers. The useful lesson is to investigate the surrounding work, not to assume that every tool supplier wins.