How To Do Market Research For Your Startup

90% of startups fail within their first two years of operation despite the fact every startup founder being personally convinced that people would easily buy their services during the initial phases of their startups. The key reason behind this: most startup founders never realize the importance of a detailed market research before starting their venture, which leads to a startup founder analyzing the situation wrongly and making bad decisions. A proper market research won’t only help an entrepreneur to understand how his or her target audience but would also help to decide whether or not the target audience is ready for the products they are going to launch in their venture.

In this article we discuss the tips which one should follow while conducting a market research for their startups:

Contact Your Target Audience: Search people on the basis of their age, gender, locations and monthly income who you think can be your potential customers and tell them about your new ventures or services you are planning to offer. Ask them whether they would like to try any such service in future or not. Ask them about their opinions, expectations, needs, price they would like to spend for such kind of service. These things would help you to understand your target audience’s way of thinking.

Analyze your Competitors: Research the level of competition you have to face in your new venture. Sometimes the competition in niche markets is very high that you may need a huge budget for marketing to attract customers. So if you don’t have sufficient funds, it would be better to leave such startups instead of facing loss in later stages.

Visit Local Authorities: Almost every city has a specific department which helps local people in starting small businesses. You can go to such offices and discuss with them about the feasibility of your new venture and how much initial investment would be required.  Governments do give grants to startups in specific niches, so check if your venture is related to any such niche.

Local Libraries and Newspapers: You can visit local libraries and search market reports related to your niche. Every good library has a separate book section related to business and finance, where you can find books which cover the market information about your startup idea. The other thing you can do is to search the classified sections of your local newspaper. If you can find enough ads from people who are looking for your services, then there will be a good scope in the market.

Search Online: Last, but not the least, is to search online. You can find lots of free and useful information on web like latest market reports, experiences of successful founders of similar startups, resources you will need to set up your venture and everything else you can think about.

This guest post is contributed by Rudo Malequin, who works as Internet Marketing Executive for Fortepromo, which creates customized promotional products for startups and help them to promote their brand in market.