How to do market research properly?
Hi Indie hackers!
When you decided to start a new project it's crucial to do initial market research.
I have 2 questions:
- Which approach do you use to do market research? What data do you want to acquire?
For example, ideally, I want to see the following:
- Possible market size
- Approximate statistics for competitors (revenue, number of users, ARPU, CAC, etc) if possible
- Customer sources for competitors (they can be used to get first users and conduct cust dev interviews) if possible
- What sources do you recommend to read or watch about market research? (books, videos, sites, etc.)
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People are irrational so it makes dumping tons of resources on traditional research ineffective. I would start small. Do you have a small nucleus of clients you can talk to? Remember it’s about what they say LATERALLY not literally. The reasons most people give for why they buy or don’t buy they don’t really understand. So always listen to what’s not being said.
I like Alex and Amy's site: https://stackingthebricks.com/articles/
I also recommend the book: The Mom Test.
I think some investigation of competitors is good but the real valuable research is in observing how people are currently solving the problem space you want to improve. Don't ask them if they would buy your product, ask them how are they solving the problem today and are they paying for it.
You may discover that people won't pay to actually solve the pain or they are solving it with a free thing (like Google Sheets).