Read the 'The 4-steps to the Epiphany' by Steven Blank (http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/0976470705 http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Ep

Read the 'The 4-steps to the Epiphany' by Steven Blank (http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/0976470705 http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/09...) Things to look for in a disruptive market: 1) The presence of the 'Earlyvangelist'. It does not matter if you can disrupt an industry if no one will realize the value of the innovation. This means finding real people at real companies and gathering requirements for something they will buy. 2) An existing distribution channel that is available for the new product. 3) Existing product positioning that you can leverage. As a startup, its hard to disrupt when you have to spend all your money on advertising, branding, or explaining what your product is. 4) Large existing market. The book has a helpful framework for analyzing markets base on some of these factors, maturity, etc. This identifies the primary constraints of market risk. From there you can work with the customer to build a better product, and if you are lucky the risk shifts towards execution.