Yitang Opportunity Foresight Methodology is the Cognitive Framework Chapter (15-character core principle / 7-layer spectrum / 76% probability). This wiki is the In-Depth Chapter: Truman's lecture "Industry Canvas: A Required Course for Forecasting Industry Opportunities" + Zhou Zijing's lecture "Endgame Foresight: Reunderstanding Concentration".
I. Industry Opportunity Foresight Canvas (Lectured by Truman)
Upgrade "industry research" from guesswork to systematic canvas-based research.
5-Dimensional Industry Foresight Canvas
| Dimension | Key Question | Output |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Deconstruct the industry chain | Who are the upstream, midstream and downstream players in your track? | Complete chain diagram: Upstream (raw materials/suppliers) → Midstream (production/brands) → Downstream (channels/users) |
| 2. Identify industry changes | What is changing on the supply side / demand side / in technology / policy / channels? | Specific facts + data for the 5 types of changes |
| 3. Forecast the next steady state | What will the industry look like in 5-10 years? | Endgame form description + key variables |
| 4. Judge the industry cycle | Is the current stage early / rapid growth / mature / declining? | Cycle stage + remaining dividend period |
| 5. Judge ceiling & concentration | What is the upper limit of industry scale? Is concentration high or low? | Market size + CRn forecast |
5 Types of Changes (5 angles for industry insight)
- Market supply-side changes — Whether the number of suppliers is increasing/decreasing, and whether products are homogeneous vs differentiated
- Market demand-side changes — Whether user demand is upgrading / shifting / segmenting
- New technology changes — Penetration of technologies such as AI / big data / IoT / blockchain into the industry
- National policy changes — Dividend policies vs restrictive policies
- Channel changes — New media platforms / new sales channels / new user reach methods
II. Concentration CRn (Zhou Zijing's lecture "Endgame Foresight: Reunderstanding 'Concentration'")
"What is concentration? Simply put, it is whether a track is fragmented or concentrated, whether a few players dominate, or small companies are everywhere."
Definition
Industry concentration: The sum of market shares held by within the relevant market of that industry, accounted for by the top N largest enterprises.
Most commonly used indicator: CRn(Concentration Ratio for top N)
- CR3 CR3 = Sum of market shares of the top 3 players
- CR5 CR5 = Sum of market shares of the top 5 players
- CR10 CR10 = Sum of market shares of the top 10 players
Example: In 2020, CR5 of China's soy sauce industry was approximately 30% — the top 5 companies combined accounted for 30% of the entire market.
Keyword 1: N largest players
The granularity of industry classification determines CRn. Classification that is too broad (all food) is meaningless; classification that is too narrow (milk tea on a certain block in Qingdao) is also meaningless.
Keyword 2: Relevant market
"Relevant market" is the real boundary of the track.Misconception: Treating "Douyin snacks" as an independent track.
Even if you have become a top player in Douyin snacks and captured 80% of that market share, your national share may actually be less than 1%, and you will still face full competition on Taobao/Tmall, offline, Pinduoduo, and WeChat private domain sales.
Rule:A single online channel is usually not used as the standard for dividing independent tracks. You need to look at the full set of channels through which users can purchase products.
III. 3 Tiers: 60 Points / 75 Points / 85 Points
| Tier | Capability | Training Goal |
|---|---|---|
| 60 points | Able to research the current situation | Obtain current competition concentration data for the track |
| 75 points | Able to forecast the endgame | Form insights and forecast future concentration levels |
| 85 points | Able to formulate strategies | Set operation strategies based on concentration change trends |
60 points: How to research existing concentration (3 methods)
| Method | Applicable Scenarios |
|---|---|
| 1. Read prospectuses / financial reports | Relatively mature industries with listed leading companies (e.g., prospectuses of Nayuki / Xiaomi / Pop Mart / XPeng all disclose CR3) |
| 2. Read research reports | Large / early-stage / popular tracks (use search engines + keyword "XX industry + concentration") |
| 3. Conduct your own research and estimation | New tracks with few companies (list leading companies → research revenue → estimate market share) |
75 points: Forecast future concentration (underlying logic)
3 endgame forms:
| Form | CR5 Threshold | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Highly concentrated | CR5 ≥ 90% | WeChat, Meituan, Didi |
| Relatively concentrated | CR5 ≈ 70%, top 10 account for 70-80% | High-end baijiu, large home appliances, mobile phones |
| Relatively fragmented | CR5 < 30%,CR10 < 10% | CR5 < 20%, top 10 < 30% |
2 decisive factors + N auxiliary factors:
Decisive factor 1: Whether demand is standardized and long-term stable
- More standardized and stable → higher concentration
- More diverse and volatile → lower concentration
- Comparisons:
- Women's clothing vs men's clothing → women's clothing has lower concentration (styles/colors/preferences are highly variable)
- Commercial fit-out (2B) vs home decoration (2C) → home decoration has lower concentration (each household has different preferences/house types)
- Fashion casual shoes vs sports shoes → fashion casual shoes have lower concentration
- Decoration lighting vs desk lamps → decoration lighting has lower concentration
- Pet snacks vs pet staple food → pet snacks have lower concentration (more variable)
Focus on analyzing 3 things: standardization of demand, cyclicality, and degree of change.
Decisive factor 2: Model barriers (economies of scale vs diseconomies of scale)
"As business replicates and scale expands, there will definitely be many factors that bring economies of scale, and many factors that bring diseconomies of scale.The two sides are in a process of opposition. "
- Strong economies of scale(network effects / brands / patents / licenses) → high concentration
- Strong diseconomies of scale(reliance on people / high management difficulty / service radius) → low concentration
SaaS concentration ranking: Pure product SaaS > light consulting SaaS > custom development SaaS (the more reliant on people, the greater the diseconomies of scale)
Catering concentration comparison: Hot pot (no chef required) > Chinese specialty chains (chefs required)
Braised food concentration comparison: Zhouheiya (casual braised food, factory-produced) > table-served braised food for meals (pork/beef)
Supporting course for judging "whether a business has economies of scale":Yitang Opportunity Foresight Methodology Step 3 + Unit Model L6 (the most complex diagram of Yitang in 2021).
Auxiliary factors (N factors that may affect concentration)
| Factor | Impact |
|---|---|
| Policy restrictions | Depends on specific circumstances (e-cigarettes, internet finance, double reduction education policy) |
| Entry barriers | High barriers → high concentration (CPU chips, aerospace) |
| Service radius | Physical limitations → low concentration (cement, sand and gravel) |
| Market volatility | Unstable supply/channels → low concentration (agricultural products, consumer goods channel migration) |
| Universalization of key supply | Scarce technology becomes common → concentration decreases (robots, e-commerce platforms) |
| Capital factor | Capital-intensive industries → high concentration |
85 points: Operation strategies (4 types of market evolution)
Concentration is a dynamic concept. From present to future, divided by high/low, there are 4 evolution scenarios.
| High future concentration | Low future concentration | |
|---|---|---|
| High current concentration | Battle Concluded type(High→High) | Early Stage type(High→Low) [note: source labels this cell as Early Stage type, but the high→low direction is retained as written] |
| Low current concentration | Winner Takes All type(Low→High) | Hundred Flowers Blooming type(Low→Low) |
Type 1: High → High (Battle Concluded type)
Judgment: Leading players already have scale + barriers, and there are no major changes in the industry.
Example: Large home appliances, telecommunications, e-commerce platforms, energy, cola market.
Operation advice: Unless there are huge changes or huge resources, do not enter the market rashly.
- Huge changes (new energy vehicles replacing fuel vehicles / functional skincare technology breakthroughs) → opportunities exist
- Huge resources (launching food delivery at Didi / launching hotel and ride-hailing at Meituan) → you can continue to carve out a share
Type 2: Low → Low (Hundred Flowers Blooming type)
Judgment: Currently fragmented, and will be very difficult to concentrate in the future.
Example: Women's clothing, children's clothing, catering, offline hardware stores, offline training, investment institutions, custom SaaS.
Operation advice: Focus on revenue, progress steadily, do not over-aggressively expand and subsidize.
Truman's counterexample: Chain children's swimming pools — cross-city management + operations all have diseconomies of scale, and they are basically local small brands. If you blindly believe that "there will definitely be a national chain super large company in the future", start frantically financing, burning money, and selling houses,you will eventually find that the "high-concentration large company" in your head does not exist at all.
You should: Make every store profitable, make every order profitable.
Reverse selection: If you want to run a stable small-and-beautiful business, you can proactively choose tracks with fast-changing demand, diseconomies of scale, and volatility:
- Competing with sports shoes → better to sell casual women's clothing
- Competing with chain fast food → better to open a boutique specialty Chinese restaurant
- Pet staple food → better to make pet snacks
Typical case (2021): The hot pot track is 800 billion RMB, Haidilao's CR1 is only 4.7%, but it is still a company with 40 billion RMB in revenue.
Type 3: Low → High (Winner Takes All type)
Judgment: Current players are fragmented, but there are strong barriers/brands/scale effects, and the market will become highly concentrated in the future.
Example: Internet platforms, businesses with technical barriers, businesses with strong brand effects.
Operation advice: Make rational judgments, pay attention to the window period, stay focused, expand quickly, and strive to get a ticket first.
Counterexample: A grocery shopping platform, a used car platform — poured resources into expanding to dozens or hundreds of stores, thinking they had strong scale advantages,but finally found no scale advantage was formed, burned through cash flow and closed down.
Positive example 1 (ride-hailing product): With two-sided platform network effects, concentration will be very high, and the first player should be able to take 50% market share.Correct strategy: Finance as soon as possible, burn for scale, expand, instead of stopping to polish product experience and improve brand satisfaction.
Positive example 2 (niche monopoly — kinetic sand): The glass microbead business had no barriers, and everyone worked hard. After taking over the family business from his father, he mapped the upstream and downstream, found the "kinetic sand" niche track (educational toy), and used glass microbead R&D advantages to develop kinetic sand that is "odorless/harmless/non-sticky".Annual output value is tens of millions of RMB, firmly ranked first with 80% market share, technical barriers, and good profit margins. Then use the monopoly profits from the niche track to open up new battlefields.
Recommended book: *Entrepreneurship is Niche Monopoly* — applicable to "high-concentration winner-takes-all" tracks.
Type 4: High → Low (Early Stage type)
Judgment: The market has just started, with few players and high concentration; after players enter, concentration drops rapidly.
Example:
- Coffee (Starbucks monopoly → Luckin/Manner/specialty coffee influx)
- Skincare (foreign big brands → Winona/Marubi/Proya)
- Electric vehicles (Tesla → NIO/Li Auto/XPeng)
Operation advice: A new market has just started, and there is an opportunity to carve out a new brand (especially with new demand/new channels/rise of new generations).
Truman's personal investment judgment: High-speed hair dryers, hair removal devices, beauty devices, electric toothbrushes — currently high concentration, there will still be opportunities for new brands in the future.
IV. 3 Levels of Elevation: Reunderstanding "Concentration"
Level 1: Have track thinking
Entrepreneurship is like playing cards. Novices only stare at the cards in their own hands; professional players look at the information across the entire table.
You cannot only stare at company data / revenue / reports. You need to see: who are the competitors on the same track / how is everyone's revenue / what is the current state of competition.
Level 2: Forecast big wins and small wins
Master card players are masters of calculating probabilities.
- If you can get a big win (high concentration): seize the timing, finance when you should, burn money when you should
- If it is a small win (low concentration): stay steady honestly, don't make mistakes that knock you out of the game
Fatal mistake:Holding a hand of small cards, yet betting all your chips at once.
Level 3: Analyze the track realistically
"The essence of concentration is to realistically analyze the competition on the track."
3-step method:
- Objective — Concentration depends on user demand, model barriers, and policies.It does not depend on your determination, nor on how smart you are, or whether you dare to go All in
- Quantitative — Obtain real, reliable CRn data, growth rates, and benchmarks
- Summarize objective laws — What the endgame concentration will roughly be / change trends → operation strategy
"May you live well in hundred-flowers-blooming tracks, and may you be the first to win in winner-takes-all tracks."
V. Industry × Concentration = Your Ceiling
"How big your business can grow at maximum depends on the track's ceiling × maximum concentration."
| Track Ceiling | Concentration | Case |
|---|---|---|
| Large + High | Extremely large | WeChat (1.3 billion users × high concentration) |
| Large + Low | Large(carve out a piece) | Hot pot 800 billion RMB × Haidilao 4.7% = 40 billion RMB revenue |
| Small + High | Not small(Hidden Champion) | Glass microbeads/kinetic sand: tens of millions of RMB in annual output value × 80% market share |
| Small + Low | Small opportunity | Most small offline businesses |
Recent trend: Hidden champions have attracted much attention — achieving extremely high concentration in not-so-large tracks.
VI. Student Case Collection
Case 1: Animation IP Commercial Licensing (Wang Lanmei)
Student: 2022 mentoring project, commercialization of a Douyin IP with 21 million followers.
Complete canvas:
| Step | Output |
|---|---|
| 1. Deconstruct the industry chain | Animation IP content copyright holders + operating agencies + peripheral product manufacturers + sales channels + users |
| 2. Identify changes | Supply: Homogenized, cute/combat genres account for 70%; Demand: Parent-child relationship frictions + children's health consumption; Policy: K12 double reduction + quality education dividend; Channel: All-media platforms |
| 3. Predict the steady state | Omnichannel IP promotion + offline IP cultural and creative specialty stores + diversified IP licensing |
| 4. Judge the cycle | Mid-to-late growth stage (15 years of rapid development of animation IPs) |
| 5. Ceiling | Pan-ACG 420 million users; market size 120 billion RMB; growth rate 21.8% |
| 6. Concentration | Low → Low: Top IP CR10 < 30%, and in the mid-to-late stage of the life cycle, a hundred flowers bloom |
Strategic choice (based on the low→low judgment):
- Advance steadily, do not expand aggressively
- Strategic cooperation with Hongfang Culture (Top 5 in IP licensing) to create a "lighthouse case"
- Validate categories including blind boxes, picture books, and educational games
- Participate in international IP licensing exhibitions / toy fairs
Case 2: Youth Career Planning / College Entrance Examination Volunteer Filling Guidance (Shen Jingyi)
Core data:
- 10.71 million gaokao takers in 2020, new gaokao reform rolled out in 8 provinces
- Teacher-student ratio gap: 10.71 million / 30 = 357,000 planners (for senior year of high school), 1.05 million for the full cycle
- Current market penetration rate < 10%
- 954 enterprises nationwide, 42% established for less than 1 year
- Top players: Lischen Bainingcai (B2C direct operation), Aipeiyou (B2B2C internet three-teacher model + livestream + independent selection), Qiuxuebao, Youzhiyuan, Heqi Juli
- Model evolution: OPO → OMO → OMO+AI
Case 3: Children's Hardware Industry (Zhang Mingrui)
Core insights:
- Industry chain: Chips + solutions + processing + content + brand + channels + users
- 4 types of suppliers (chips/solutions/processing/content) have not changed significantly in the past 8 years
- Channels and users have changed greatly: mobile phone habits + livestream e-commerce
- Internet hardware (Mitu) emerged to challenge traditional players (Huohuotu), but the supply chain remained unchanged →No major changes in products/experience, only cheaper and more convenient
- Content quality actually declined
Case 4 (Private Board): How to choose an entrepreneurial direction from 3 projects
Format: Equal dialogue among No.1 leaders, high-quality learning, and mutual support.It is not an expert problem-solving meeting, but a process for No.1 leaders to make overall factual judgments and sort out decisions.
Origin: Board of directors of partnership companies in the Age of Discovery → rational topics in modern society in 1727 → modern international business network in 1950.
Case 5 (Consultation): How a new brand can leverage existing advantages (Shu Fang consults Chen Meishan)
Chen Meishan's situation: 3 offline baijiu chain stores (1 closed), planning to develop her own lujiu (fruit wine) brand.
Chen Meishan's 3 confusions:
- Target audience / product positioning / product design
- Unclear understanding of the difficulty and investment scale of offline channels
- Lack of online promotion methods / investment forecast
Shu Fang's background: 17 years in foreign enterprises (Unilever/Johnson & Johnson/Mondelez/Oreo), South KA Group Director, founded the "Lame Luli" brand (sold in 4,800 convenience stores).
VII. Candy 1: Panoramic Industry Chain Maps for 39 Industries
Source: Zhihu "Practical Content | Panoramic Maps of 39 Industry Chains in China"https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/37287953
List of 39 industries (used as a benchmark reference for the "deconstruct industry chain" step):
| # | Industry | # | Industry | # | Industry |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New energy vehicles | 14 | Aircraft | 27 | Nuclear power |
| 2 | Robots | 15 | Livestock breeding | 28 | Cybersecurity |
| 3 | Real estate | 16 | Sports | 29 | Wind power |
| 4 | Rare earth | 17 | Drones | 30 | Sapphire |
| 5 | E-sports | 18 | Ternary batteries | 31 | Blockchain |
| 6 | Titanium dioxide | 19 | Food processing | 32 | LED |
| 7 | Superconducting materials | 20 | High-speed rail | 33 | Typical structure of the PPP model |
| 8 | Smart home furnishings | 21 | Smart watches | 34 | Photovoltaics |
| 9 | VR | 22 | Graphene | 35 | Internet of Things |
| 10 | Influencer economy | 23 | Sensors | 36 | Education |
| 11 | OLED | 24 | Smartphones | 37 | Logistics |
| 12 | Quantum communication | 25 | Autonomous driving | 38 | Environmental protection |
| 13 | Pharmaceuticals and biology | 26 | 3D printing | 39 | Building materials |
How to use:
- When deconstructing the industry chain, first check whether your track is among the 39
- If yes: Copy the existing chain structure → save 80% of research time
- If no: Use the closest industry as an analogy starting point
VIII. Candy 2: Fresh Food New Retail Research Report (36Kr)
Characteristics (popular new retail track):
- High gross margin, high repurchase rate, high user stickiness, instant demand
- High supply chain requirements + emphasis on in-person experience
3 future dimensions: Closer, better, faster
5 indispensable elements:
- Do not abandon the foundation of e-commerce (online-offline integration)
- Adjust product structure to find a reasonable average order value
- Finely control product turnover to reduce losses
- Innovate delivery models to reduce logistics costs
- Build a cost structure that can be effectively amortized by growing user scale
IX. Candy 3: List of N Methods to Increase Switching Costs (Know-How Primer)
Know-How: A high-frequency term in venture capital circles, referring to "core methods/experience/technical know-how of doing things".
If you have never used the term Know-How in your vocabulary, this piece is a must-read primer.
Introductory reading: "What on Earth is 'Know How' That Investors Often Mention" + "The Nature of Business and the Internet" (available on WeChat Reading).
X. Candy 4: Wang Huiwen's 66-Page Tsinghua Product Course PDF
See Yitang / Complete Notes on Wang Huiwen's 66-Page Tsinghua Product Course — Wang Huiwen, No.2 of Meituan, gave this Tsinghua course in 2020, covering general product management methodologies.
5 core modules:
- 3 categories of the internet industry (pure online / O2O / automation)
- ABC types of scale effects (user experience advantage vs cost advantage)
- Industry chain + Porter's Five Forces (upstream-downstream concentration game, e.g., OTAs vs airlines)
- Strategy: First-mover advantage vs late-mover advantage
- 4 major characteristics of demand (satisfaction/ROI/scalability/sustainability)
XI. Relationship Between This Course and Other Courses
本 wiki(深度篇)
↑
[[yitang-机会预判]] 认知框架篇 (15 字心法 / 76% 概率 / 7 层光谱图)
↑
[[yitang-roi-complete-system]] ROI 5 课系列(列推建查 / X 型 Y 型 / 案例停车场)
↑
[[yitang-deep-retrospective]] 深度复盘第一课
↑
[[yitang-life-redpoint-100-cases]] 人生红点(为什么做这件事)
Advanced recommendations:
- Yitang / Complete Notes on Wang Huiwen's 66-Page Tsinghua Product Course — Wang Huiwen's Tsinghua course (expansion of Candy 4 in this wiki)
- Unit Model L6 Course — Super Diagram of Economies of Scale / Diseconomies of Scale (the most complex diagram in Yitang in 2021)
- Industry Report Research Course — Methods for researching concentration data at the 60-point tier
- Research Hacker 5 Steps — Tool for obtaining revenue data of top companies
- Financial Statement Interpretation Course (Xu Yu) — Search and research skills for listed company financial reports
See also
- Yitang Opportunity Foresight Methodology — Opportunity Foresight Cognitive Framework Chapter (primer for this wiki)
- Yitang / Complete Notes on Wang Huiwen's 66-Page Tsinghua Product Course — Wang Huiwen's Tsinghua Product Course (Candy 4 in this wiki)
- Yitang / Complete Scientific Decision-Making ROI System (4 main courses + 5 Candy case collections) — 5-course ROI series (decision evaluation)
- Yitang / First Lesson on In-Depth Review — First Lesson on In-Depth Review
- Yitang / Life Red Dot Cognitive Chapter + 100 Case Collection — Life Red Dot (WHY layer)
- Yitang / Required Course on Time Management — Time Management (foundational basic skill)
- Yitang / Complete Inspiration Flash System (Cognition + Cases + Tools + Notes) — Inspiration Flash (creative solutions)
- Personal memory user_role — Product manager + entrepreneur perspective
- Wang Kai AI Era Decision-Making System — Wang Kai Decision-Making System (AGI perspective)
Relationship with existing Skills
This wiki is ~/.claude/skills/yitang-predict-business-opportunity/ a deep knowledge base expansion for the Skill,covering content that existing Skills only mention briefly:
- 5-dimensional industry canvas method
- CRn concentration calculation and foresight
- 4 types of market evolution operation strategies
- Student case library
Skills are prioritized for operation and execution; this wiki provides in-depth cases + concepts.