Hot answers tagged market-research
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If you're not having luck online, I'd start doing personal interviews.
If you're targeting a specific industry, you can go to trade shows, local Meetup groups, or Internet Yellowpages sites to contact people in that industry.
If its a great idea, you may want to consider how you can protect your intellectual property while you develop the concept. Asking ...
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I heard a horror story the other day, where an individual got raving reviews from every customer he spoke with. After they launched, not a single one cared to use his product. Cost him a small fortune.
What you need to start doing is getting commitments from individuals. Just like area 51 stack exchange is doing. Just get 200 people that are willing to ...
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Surveys suck and nobody really likes to answer them, not even you.
If the "goal to establish that my product has market potential" then you might also need to consider other avenues to reach that critical objective. I imagine the reason you're wondering if there's a market for your product is that there's nothing on the market that looks like your product? ...
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The fastest place to start your research is through google. Search on the terms that describe your product and see if someone is already in that space. If no one is in that space its possible that there is no market for it. If there is a lot of people in that product it maybe difficult to get into. If though a few new products have gotten into it it ...
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Market research for anything but the biggest and best-covered markets (e.g., computer sales) is typically a painful process. In my opinion, there are a couple of different flavors to think about.
The first but probably less important aspect is the numbers you might want to put in your pitch deck or business plan - market size, share, etc. I'm not aware of ...
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Have you asked your potential customers if there are competitors in this space? That's where I'd go next. Find some industry leaders and ask them, (using that opportunity to pitch them on your own idea and gauge reactions).
I'd guess the lack of replies might have to do with the vagueness of the question, but you seem to have met the minimum standards for ...
4
Building for Yourself or Other People
You can find success building for yourself or for other people, but the key is to have unfettered access to at least one person in the demographic you're looking to sell to. Niches where you know someone on the inside (what I call a "warm niche") will be dramatically easier to succeed in than something you pick out of a ...
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For something quick, dirty, and fairly cheap, try something like the following process:
Research potential competitors and their products and/or services and realistically assess whether or not you can provide a unique selling proposition that differs enough from the competition.
Use Google Trends, the
External Keyword Tool, and
the Traffic ...
4
You might want to start networking with those who sell Merchant Accounts. Braintree merchants is in your area and has a great reputation for E-comm. They will be able to share leads with you. Other than that, get a list of local zip codes and start doing some searches in bing for shops with the zip code.
Its all about networking at this point. Spread ...
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Asking Them Directly
The key is to ask them when a) they already have in their mind a good of what your sample product should do and b) they are relaxed and conversational, and know for sure its not a sales call.
A great way to get them in this state is to start them off talking about their business process, what they like, what they don't like, and what ...
4
I would stop building features, start trying to build an audience, and start selling your software.
The problem with passion projects is that when you run out of passion, they usually die. If you were making your living off of it, you'd be much more likely to do a great job.
Low Cost Ways to Get Leads
Blog about what you know and what you are passionate ...
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Another option is to find a customer first.
Here is what you will probably learn if you do some research: (please see disclaimer at the bottom.)
There are literally thousands of CRM applications. There are client side solutions that have been in the market for years like ACT and even look-alikes "better-thans" like Salesnexus. There are polished ...
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Your problems are that you are unrealistic about what you can deliver and you don't even have the beginning of a marketing plan.
There is no such thing as bug free software - software by Microsoft has bugs, software by Google has bug and software by you has bugs, if you really believe you can deliver bug free software you are in the wrong business - ...
3
I think this gets you started roughly 50% for each gender and 36 billion as of ending 2007 quarter. Pew didn't answer frequency of use so the 50% is going to be off but I think it is an indicator of use that if you get nothing else should be used.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/Online-Shopping.aspx
...
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You will ever face the problem with data quality. Try http://www.google.com/trends where you could compare sites or keywords and see the traffic development depending on your keywords or sites for many years history.
However, you need to take into account, that even the numbers in google might include traffic which was generated just to find keyword ...
3
Maybe it's an advantage if the competition thinks you're crappy, when in reality you're building exactly what their customers want.
But that's not enough to win this argument -- I assume you've already talked to him about "4 steps" and that it hasn't worked. More arguing is probably not the answer.
Sometimes you do know the market cold, in which case you ...
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I have to agree with Tim in the previous comment. You are much more likely to succeed and be passionate about a startup if you start by doing something you are interested in. Don't think about where a market is, start with a problem you have and its very likely that many people out there have the same problem.
Check out this article by Paul Graham : Making ...
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(Just an aside - "respect" and facebook don't go together in the same sentence.)
Assuming I would take your position I would ask him how he would address the risk of spending time and money building something no one wants. Ask him if he thinks it is a valid concern.
You should also figure out how to address his concern over the risk that no one will take ...
3
Well 37signals is not a social network. They are however probably the only company that is profitable.
The market size of social networks are potentially limitless but even though it's fairly easy to make revenue it's very hard to be profitable.
First and foremost because most social networks are ecosystems and start out as free.
Second of all because ...
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This is also true for Germany. There's an official service by the Bundesministeriums der Justiz to search for all important information required to be published about companies:
www.unternehmensregister.de (English)
Documents are mostly not free of charge but from what I discovered much cheaper than "2nd-hand unofficial websites" that offering this ...
3
There are many good reasons to know who the customer will experience as the competition as part of launching your start-up. Not least among them is that it is a critical variable in developing your marketing and sales material.
So, lets make a hypothetical assumption that there is no competitor in your space.
Stop thinking about your space. And start ...
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I'm not in the business, but I own a website, so take my answer with a grain of salt.
I'm guessing that more than half customers came from a search engine and were searching for something else. Of the rest, most are probably just checking out. Actual customers are probably just a fraction of visitors. But that of course depends on which market you're in.
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You can ask somebody how much it will cost to do it. This is called "market price" and can differ significantly to what you estimate analytically. It can vary from place to place.
"and I do not want to deceive them to think that I would really buy the service from them" - This seems wrong to me. The only real price is the price they will give you knowing ...
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PRO:
The field of dreams business approach is viable if you are in college and are working on an idea you are passionate about. Warning BIAS (I have an MBA and a Masters of Entrepreneurship and have been trained to do Market Research): I think other than in that scenario it is important to at least do preliminary Market Research for viability, size, ...
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Your description matches all the key signs of a common mistake, so I'm willing to bet that your best option is option 1.
Option 2 sounds like a great way to continue failing. Since you fail on a given platform, you keep coding for another one, hoping... for what exactly?
If your current product is somehow not successful, coding more of the same will not ...
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Have you tried doing a google search with the following modifiers
filetype:pdf or
filetype:ppt
As well as using blogsearch.google.com. Both throw up relevant links and files when you use the outdoor and travel key words.
A third option would be to buy an HBS case on the subject by doing a keyword search on the HBS Publishing site. Cases cost anywhere ...
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Understand the major players, find out their revenue and add them all up. For example, I just googled 'North Face market share' and found a slidepack that mentions some market share statistics and competitors. Ok this particular slidepack is geared towards marathon runners and that niche market but you can see how you might glean more information by ...
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As mentioned in this article Groupon has filed for an IPO and in its paperwork has disclosed some revenue figures. Their estimated revenue for 2010 is ~$870 million, but on that they made a loss of $413 million. In this article they talk a bit more about subscriber numbers etc.
If you want some light bed-time reading, then dive into Groupon's actual SEC ...
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You should take a look at this recent community wiki entry: How Do I Define and Research a Market and Estimate Market Share.
Estimating your revenue and user acquisition rates comes at the tail-end of estimating potential market share. For that, Jarie puts it best when he says:
Defining your marketplace, doing research and estimating market share are ...
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You can make up numbers based on total market size forever, if your google/apple/microsoft then your look at these numbers because your going to have a chance at a serious percentage of these in the first year ... Unless you have deep pockets or a "facebook" style viral product then you need a different approach.
A realistic method is to work out "playing ...
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