“The price of light is less than the cost of darkness.”
That’s a quote from Arthur C. Nielsen, market researcher and founder of Nielsen Holdings.
If you are an entrepreneur with a new product or an innovator building a startup company, market research is crucial for success. Yes, you will need to invest valuable time and funding to better understand your market. But the knowledge you gain will prove itself much more valuable than what you would have saved by foregoing it — and the consequences suffered by operating in the dark.
While the term market research conveys complexity and expense, there are many ways to approach your potential customer base, often with more ease and affordability than you might think.
First, there are many sources of secondary market data: government data, social media statistics, and the like. One example of a relatively new secondary data source is Google Trends which offers free, online trending data for any topic and/or geography of your choosing, worldwide.
Although secondary data sources won’t give you the textural insights you’ll need to align your product with specific market needs, they can shed light on things like market size, trends and other macro-level questions to help you see the bigger picture for the market opportunity you’re pursuing.
Second, gathering your own unique, primary data is now easier and more affordable than ever due to new online capabilities and platforms that collect specific market information through social media polls, email surveys, and competitor research.
Sites like Survey Monkey (Surveymonkey.com), Attest (AskAttest.com) and SimilarWeb (SimilarWeb) offer free and/or inexpensive means for connecting with potential customers for feedback and for researching the competitive landscape.
Third, and most importantly in my experience, is connecting one-on-one with potential customers to gather primary data like opinions and feedback on your proposed product or service.
This approach is most valuable early in the product design process when it can help inform your final plans before limited company resources are invested in your new offering without confirming it fits tightly with real market needs. While it may seem crazy to pull back the curtain on your product details so early on, especially with potential customers, it’s actually the smartest way to maximize your chance at achieving product-market fit and ultimately producing the future sales needed to survive and thrive.
Maybe you’re a budding entrepreneur with a passion project you’ve been nurturing for several years, and you’re finally ready to pull the trigger. Or maybe you launched your startup a few months ago and it hasn’t gained momentum as quickly as you were hoping. Either way, invest the time and resources to know your market and move your company into the light.
– John Moore is a principal with Momenteum Strategies, an Upstate-based consulting firm specializing in helping communities and their economic development organizations build thriving, impactful innovation ecosystems.
