Post by Descartes & Mauss

In our previous post, we made a point: “This is new” and “this is ready to scale” are not the same thing, because a signal can look strategically important and attractive long before it is ready for a scale decision. Get a defendable market timing score using our Maturity Score: One market-level score, broken down across six concrete dimensions: → Adoption & normalisation → Competitor landscape → Economic viability → Ecosystem readiness → Regulatory & institutional → Technology readiness Each dimension comes with its evaluation criteria, rationale, and sources. No black box. Just a clearer way to understand whether a space is still emerging, actively growing, or getting close to maturity. Example: prebiotic functional beverages: - In 2021, the growth space was Emerging (3.8/10). Interest was building, but the signals needed to support a real scale decision were still limited. Consumer adoption was not yet normalized, the competitive field was still taking shape, and the economics were not yet strong enough to support a more confident market commitment. - By 2025, it was at the higher end of growing, close to maturity (6.9/10). What changed was not just visibility. Adoption signals were stronger, the competitive field was more structured, and commercial traction made the business case more credible. Incumbent moves and category momentum made the space much more actionable than it had been a few years earlier. Our Maturity Score does not just help you describe a market. It helps you: → Defend your timing with evidence, not vibes → Align stakeholders on the same decision posture → Turn posture into action: what to watch, where to enter, what to scale …so you can prioritize where to place strategic effort first. 👉 Book a demo to see the Maturity Score live: descartesmauss.ai/demo #GrowthStrategy #MarketSignals #MaturityScore #FMCG