Market research ideas and resources if you are thinking of starting a business

Many of our Brave Starts members are exploring ideas they have in their mind and are wondering if their ideas 'have legs' or are potentially viable.

There is only one way to get an answer to this question and that is to test and to try. You need to start speaking to potential customers.

It is much easier to do this in a market that 'exists'. Trying to build an entirely new product or service which has never been done before is much harder work. I once started a 'job shadowing service' a few years back and what was especially difficult was there was no other service offering this so it was hard to identify or think about who potential customers would be. (People don't 'google' something they don't know is there). Conversely, when I ran a hotel, when people needed local accommodation they'd be 'searching' for us (usually by typing 'hotels near Tetbury). It was then a relatively simple question of talking to customers, asking what they thought and adjusting price and learning by evaluating impact on bookings to arrive at a sweet spot (which we'd adjust depending on time of year, week etc..)

When doing your own research, you may find some of the following resources useful:

Social media:

Facebook - there are thousands of groups within facebook and the largest growth over the last 2 years has been small companies and corporates going on there. There is a fish tank group for people who sell aquariums to people of over 100,000 members!! Whatever the niche you are looking to serve, chances are, there is a facebook group for you to test out a few thoughts.

X (was twitter) - is a good place to find out who is talking about a certain topic. Using a 'hashtag' #followed by the search term is good and you'll also get familiar with more hashtags. e.g for Brave Starts we might search for who else is in the space of #over50's or #careerguidance.

Linkedin - expensive and difficult to do any advertising. It's better for targeted approaches to key individuals which MUST include personalised reasons why you are contacting them. Do not try to ask for much at an early stage.

Instagram - again good for products and finding out who is talking about what. Using the hashtag feature is again useful.

Reddit - a social media platform with numerous communities (subreddits) focused on various topics and industries - if you join relevant subreddits, you can engage with communities, ask questions, and gather feedback on your business idea from real users who are interested in a specific topic.

Quora - is a Q&A platform where users can ask questions and provide answers on a range of topics.

Finding out what people are searching for online:

Search listening tool for market, customer & content research - AnswerThePublic - a free level of searches giving you insight into what search terms people are looking for and what possible alternatives there might be.

Jaxxy - Jaaxy | The Worlds Most Advanced Keyword Tool a free account gives you up to 30 free searches. What is useful is the alternative search terms people actually type into google

Answer the public - is a tool where you get 3 free searches a day (but you have to create an account). These searches tell you want people are searching for in relation to a topic. Search listening tool for market, customer & content research - AnswerThePublic

Survey tools:

Google forms: Google Forms: Online Form Creator | Google Workspace

Sometimes a short survey is a good place to start if you have an idea which could go off in two different directions. Google forms has a free option.

Survey Monkey does much the same and the free package gives you up to 10 questions.

Explainer videos: In some cases, you may not want to invest in developing something without any sense of who is going to back it. One of the most famous examples is DropBox. Back in the early 2000's the way they raised investment was by doing an explainer video and asking people to indicate if they would purchase a yearly subscription for the service. They explained the service with a concept video. They then took the millions of people saying 'yes' they would buy this if it was developed and took that to investors who leant them the investment - watch the video case study here: 🎬 The $48,000,000 Dropbox Explainer Video [Case Study] - YouTube

There is a free and basic service on Biteable which takes time to get your head around but it is easier than most.

X polls: if you have a simple binary question (e.g something to give an either or answer) then twitter polls or Linkedin polls can be useful.

Products:

Sometimes you might be developing a physical product, like spice bombs (little taste explosions to add to cooking) or Kimchee - read here about how Innocent smoothies started with the 'yes' or 'no' bin test: Unusual Facts About Innocent Smoothies (businessinsider.com)

For more locally based products try and find opportunities through your local Chamber of Commerce, your Local Enterprise Partnership and you can also try Enterprise Nation.

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Chat GPT:

It's worth asking Chat GPT to help you think through your business idea.  Ask it to take on the role of a customer avatar and have them tell you what they think of your idea. If you ask them to criticise it and ask for the best ways to test and get feedback, you'll be amazed at what it sends back - get it to coach you!

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