David Cummings on Startups

Ideas for Researching a Market

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David Cummings

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Earlier this week I was talking with an entrepreneur who was thinking through a new idea. In addition to customer discovery and working to assess the market need for the product, we also talked through a few different ideas for researching a market.

Here are a few tactical ideas to gather information on a market:

  • Find at least five competitors and build a spreadsheet of data points like number of employees in LinkedIn, amount of money raised via CrunchBase, and approximate site traffic via Compete
  • Evaluate three competitive products (sign up for a free trial or find a referral to a customer)
  • Interview 10 customers of the competitors and figure out three things they like and three things they don’t like about the product and company
  • Read at least 10 white papers and/or blog posts from industry analysts like Gartner, Forrester, or an independent researcher
  • Attend two industry tradeshows, walk the show floor talking to all the vendors, attend the sessions, and network in the hallways

Market opportunity, especially timing and size, are some of the most important considerations when deciding on an idea and starting a company. Customer discovery is critical, but it’s also worthwhile to do other types of market research.

What else? What are some of your favorite ways to research a market?

Comments

3 responses to “Ideas for Researching a Market”

  1. patricknelissen Avatar
    patricknelissen

    Hi David. Thanks for this article with tactical ideas for market research. I agree with these ideas and would like to ad “Blue Ocean Strategy” (W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne). One of my most favourite books I’ve ever read regarding this topic.

    I quote from Wikipedia: “Based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than a hundred years and thirty industries, Kim & Mauborgne show that companies can succeed not by battling competitors, but rather by creating ″blue oceans″ of uncontested market space. These strategic moves create a leap in value for the company, its buyers, and its employees, while unlocking new demand and making the competition irrelevant. The book presents analytical frameworks and tools to foster organization’s ability to systematically create and capture blue oceans.”

    Reply
  2. Bruce Warila Avatar
    Bruce Warila

    Good list. I would add identifying relevant influencers with tools like LittleBird; following and engaging said influencers; and then determining if you could blog about something (relevant) that these influencers would re-broadcast. Startups almost have to rely on influencers. If a startup can’t produce content (e.g.: blog posts) that influencers are willing to digest and retransmit, then marketing and promotion is probably going to be prohibitively expensive. ( long version – http://j.mp/17LIIYU )

    Reply
  3. dledgerton Avatar
    dledgerton

    Reblogged this on David Edgerton Jr and commented:
    Here are some tips for researching an idea or market.

    Reply

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