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Tips on starting a Market Research company?

So I've had this idea to start a market research company in my city for A WHILE now and I dunno where to start. I want it to be more than just a household name in selling data/info. I want to start a movement of people who are more inquisitive and make more data-driven decisions.

SO I'm thinking of starting with a pilot. The idea is to start with university students where I record final year students breaking down the student experience for new students. The plan is to use that pilot to collect data and spark brand awareness, then start creating reports from the data collected.

I don't even know if this makes sense. HEEEEELP!

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    Perhaps start with who you will be selling this to, what are their needs and what type of local data do they need. This will help you to understand the size and assess the need.

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      Since I'm already hung up on my proposed solution, how do I go about assessing the need in an objective way so I can expose myself to various possibilities?

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        Okay, so I am assuming you have built your product. Who did you think your target was when you started to build it? Maybe, start interviewing them to asses what their needs is, but truly learn from them without pitching.

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          Hi @prateekrmathur 🙋

          No, not yet. I'm currently working on going back to my target market and ask and listen for problems again, so that my solution isn't biased or narrow minded but that I've put the consumer first. So I definitely hear what you're saying there about learning from them without pitching.

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            Awesome, good luck! Please let me know if I can help in anyway.

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    “ I want to start a movement of people who are more inquisitive and make more data-driven decisions.” In what ways do you expect your customers to use your data different compared to other customers? In other words, What distinguishes the customers that follows your movement compared to the rest? Try to use a real life example, try to explain it as best as you can. What do you for example mean exactly with more data driven decisions? Do you mean make more decisions based on data, or on more data?

    Lastly, why would it be beneficial for people to be part of your movement that makes more data-driven decisions?

    If you can answers those questions then I think you start to better understand your idea, and the actual things that makes your idea different from the other companies.

    you don’t have to explain it here, just for yourself because I feel like you have a vague idea, but you aren’t quiet there yet.

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      I know I don't have to, but I'd love to answer these questions here, just so I can have people who know more than I do to help me work through the details.

      1. I want my customers to think of my business when they have a question, or want to venture into something they don't know about. I want to be something that comes to mind like that.

      Then from that, 2) I want my customers that follow my movement to be people that

      • through the use of my services - have become comfortable with asking for data and using that data to make good decisions about schools to go to, businesses to start, where to invest etc.
      1. More data-driven decisions means more decisions based on data and not just opinions. So, say someone wants to start a business; we can provide them with the information about that industry, the target market they would be serving, competitors etc.

      2. I think the movement would be a by-product of my business providing reliable information. Like the business founder who made decisions off of my data will realise the importance of data and that changes how he conducts business, you know? The benefit comes in in that the business founder is making decisions on reliable info and sees a profit from that, first hand.

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        “ I want my customers to think of my business when they have a question ”This means you will need to compete with Google;)
        To be concrete: let’s figure out some questions customers might have

        “ have become comfortable with asking for data ” what is right now not comfortable about getting data from Google for example? One answer could be that the data we get is manipulated, like when using DuckDuckGo you get different results then from Google. Your unique value can be in here saying that you offer non filtered data, the same for everyone.

        “More data-driven decisions means more decisions based on data and not just opinions”. How will you stop people from making decisions based on their opinions? What places do these people go before they make their decisions? Where can you get to them before it’s to late? I am not sure how and if that’s possible, except if you can appear on the top of the search results when someone searches “start a business” for example. But since there are somany topics to cover this is to much work. Maybe you have better ideas?

        “I think the movement would be a by-product of my business providing reliable information“ so your unique value is reliable data, how will you make sure it is reliable?

        “Like the business founder who made decisions off of my data will realise the importance of data and that changes how he conducts business“ How will they realize that? Or how will you make them realize that? Because I see it this way. If I want to start a business selling car parts in city x I will search for data on cardealers in city X for example, total amount of cars in city X maybe, what type of cars etc. I just Google those things and maybe I come on your website. I would use it for my business plan to get investors to invest and that’s it.

        Which brings me to an idea: interactive businessplans, make a Service that allows people to find market data and embed live that data in their businessplan. Make it extremely easy to connect data with eachother have it nicely displayed etc etc. Which brings us to what I believe is the core, what is data used for? It is used in reports, to show to other people, so make it extremely easy to create wonderful reports with live data?

        Since the others things mean you basically have to compete with Google:) you will unfortunately not be the datasource people think of, Google will be.

        This is my thought process, try it for yourself and see if you come up with ideas too!

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          This has definitely shaken me up - in a good way! 😅
          I'll definitely go sit down and process everything here. You brought up some really good points. That Google example got me thinking.

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      Riiight!

      Yep! This is exactly what I'm here for. People that can punch holes in my idea so I can perfect it. @DylanS thank you so so much.

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        No problem! Good luck figuring out your unique value.

        Really helps to prentend to be a customer for me. Example:
        I am customer x, and I want to launch a new service in your city, but how big is the market here? Customer searches market size city x. Oh the top result is you, clicks on your website. And so on

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          Thank you once again! I'll definitely start with the customer. I think my problem is that I've been fixed on my "perfect solution" that I didn't really think of the customer and THEIR point of view.

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