A CB Insights review of failed startups, published in March 2026, found that poor product-market fit is now the single most common cause of failure, named in 43 percent of post-mortems, ahead of running out of cash. If you are building next year's growth target off this year's number plus a hopeful percentage, that statistic should stop you for a moment. The real question before you set a single target for 2027 is not "how much more can I sell", it is "how big is the market I am actually selling into, and is it still big enough to carry the plan." In over 30 years building and advising businesses, from 60+ global brands at DDB, Ogilvy and Saatchi and Saatchi to 9 companies founded or co-founded, Kevin has watched more growth plans stall from a market that was never measured than from a team that didn't try hard enough.

Here is the enemy worth naming: the comfortable guess. It sounds like strategy. It is actually arithmetic. Take last year's revenue, add 15 or 20 percent, call it the plan. Nobody checks whether the market underneath that number actually has 15 or 20 percent more room in it this year, or whether the growth is being chased inside a market that has already stopped growing. The guess feels confident because it is specific. It is dangerous because it was never checked against anything outside your own profit and loss statement.

Venture investors have used a three-number check for decades to pressure-test a market before writing a cheque, and it works just as well for an SME owner setting next year's target as it does for a startup raising capital.

Most SME growth targets are built entirely from last year's SOM, rolled forward. None of the three numbers get re-measured, so the plan quietly assumes nothing in the market changed. In a lot of New Zealand and US categories right now, something has.

"Working with Kevin D'Ambros-Smith has given us the space to pause and reflect, on where we are now, where we want to be and how we get there. He really got our vision from the beginning and has been a huge help in putting together a clearer plan and strategy for the next five years."

— Gabby Kirk, Papier Hq

Most owners already know roughly what a TAM, SAM and SOM exercise is. Few actually run it, because it feels like a half-day distraction from the work already piling up, and because the honest answer sometimes shrinks the plan rather than growing it. That second reason is the real one. Nobody wants to tell their team the market is smaller than last year's target assumed.

This is exactly where an outside perspective earns its keep. A second pair of eyes with no attachment to last year's number, who has worked on 60+ global brands and founded or co-founded 9 companies, can run this exercise honestly in a single working session, in a way an owner inside the business rarely can alone.

If next year's target was built on last year's number and a hopeful percentage, that is the first thing you and Kevin fix. Fix it and you become the owner who sets a 2027 target on a market you have measured, not one you have guessed.