Where Niche Scoring Breaks at Scale (AI SaaS)

Past the third or fourth round, specific failure modes appear.

Failure Modes

• Crowding scores go stale. A niche that was uncrowded last quarter has six startups in it now.
• Capability inflation creeps back. You stop catching yourself scoring builder-fit by what the latest model can do.
• Spreadsheet sprawl. You add weighted criteria, sensitivity analysis, confidence intervals. Decisions do not improve.
• Outside review decay. Skipping the non-technical reviewer slips back in.

The Fix

Hold the practice to fifteen minutes. Re-anchor scores against round one. Keep the outside reviewer.