Quantifying the problem

A problem worth solving costs someone money, time, or risk. Quantifying makes that concrete.

The inputs#

Wedge asks for four things:

1. Who has the problem — the specific role, not the industry.
2. How often it happens — per day, week, or month.
3. What each occurrence costs — lost revenue, wasted hours × loaded rate, or churn.
4. How many of them exist — a defensible count, not a TAM slide.

The output#

You get an annual cost per customer and a rough addressable pain figure, both shown on the canvas with the assumptions attached. Change an assumption and the number updates.

Getting it right#

• Use figures your interviewees gave you, not figures you'd like to be true.
• Prefer a narrow, defensible estimate over a large, unsourced one.
• If you can't get within an order of magnitude, that's a finding — you don't understand the problem yet.