Depending on the market, 20-30 hours seems really low for thorough market research. Often times, when a market is super crowded, that means that there is a great opportunity because there really isn't a winner. Doing thorough research on tens or hundreds of companies, especially in opaque markets can be a big waste of time compared to focusing on what you are doing that is working.

Referencing AngelList and CrunchBase leads me to believe that this article is applying only to startups that compete with other startups but it is ignoring the bigger opportunity of changing existing markets.