SOM

Definition

Serviceable Obtainable Market—what you can realistically capture in the first 3-5 years. It's the intersection of TAM, SAM, and aggressive optimism.

Example Usage

Our SOM is $50M in year 5 based on conservative growth assumptions, which our CFO assures me is actually super optimistic.

Origin

Business analysis terminology; standard in financial projections since 2000s

Fun Fact

VCs know that most SOM projections are off by 70%+ but they use them anyway because the alternative is having no numbers to anchor to.

Source: Market Analysis Terminology

Related Terms

Advanced

participation rights

A clause letting preferred investors double-dip by getting their liquidation preference back AND participating in the remaining proceeds with common shareholders. It's having your cake, eating it too, and taking a slice of everyone else's.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

Dead Pool

The accumulating list of failed startups and failed startup founders—a real place we're all slowly joining.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

ghost equity

Phantom stock or profit interests that mimic real equity without actually granting ownership, often used to incentivize employees without diluting founders. All the motivation, none of the control.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

churning

The unethical practice where brokers excessively trade in a client's account primarily to generate commissions rather than profits, essentially treating your portfolio like a butter-making operation. In SaaS, it refers to the rate at which customers cancel their subscriptions, making it the metric that haunts every startup founder's dreams. Either way, it's excessive activity that benefits someone other than you.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

control premium

The additional value investors pay for governance rights and control provisions beyond pure economics, willing to pay higher prices for board seats and veto powers. The surcharge for not trusting founders to run the company they founded.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

triple down

When a VC aggressively increases their investment in a portfolio company across multiple rounds, betting their career on being right. Conviction investing taken to its logical extreme.

🚀 Startup / VC

Translate This Term

See “SOM” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator

Share This Term

Post on X Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn

Discover a Term

Beginner

soft bounce

When your email gets temporarily rejected—maybe their inbox is full, their server is having a bad day, or Mercury is i...