AskHN: How do engineers research a market for a new product? | Hacker News Reader

AskHN: How do engineers research a market for a new product?

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I have an idea for a new product at my company but I'm kind of clueless about the business end of things. I'm certain there is value in what I have in mind and that it would solve a real problem but I want to know how big the market would be or if it is plausible from a business/market perspective.

Thinks like the costs involved and potential savings are a kind of focus for me right now but any real kind of advice would be great.

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My experience with F500 companies is that they are extremely political. This means that lots of ideas get funded without any analysis of the value. The dynamic in each company and potentially each division will be different. Ultimately you might be more successful if you can find a director level or above who can pitch it for you. At the very least you should be able to articulate the value to consumers and the compnay in a few sentences with maybe an additional one or two sentences to describe how it works. Ultimately your desire and passion to make it happen is potentially more important than the idea itself.

What people should care about: 1) target and size of market 2) alignment to current product mix/message 3) cost/risk to produce 4) how will this benefit the company

What they really care about is: 1) what am I bonused on 2) How can I get a promotion 3) How will what you are telling me help me with 1 or 2 4) Will I be embarrassed if I place a bet on you

* Consider that your audience will not fully understand your idea unless you can effectively present it - take the time to build a visual presentation * Estimate time/effort to complete the project, the cost of integration into the current IT environment, on going needs (people/ systems / support) * Revenue structure and model - per seat, per month, per licence, one time * off set costs with revenue to show time line of profitability based on a log of sales. be conservative. let other people you can sell more * build a prototype - even a poor one but make it look good. Most business types take visual cues to reflect on code quality. They do not understand Algos. Don't discuss it with people that do not understand the math / concepts. Talk about the solution to a problem instead. * If possible build two documents: one is a powerpoint presentation with the above information. The other is a prose document outlining in deeper information the system/ concept / etc * Give it away - you don't need to own the project. Find the individuals in your firm that can get it done. Get them interested in the project. Let them help you sell it. * Market Research is red ocean. You can only know what has been done and with what demographics. You can not understand blue oceans from market data. Determine if your product / service is new/unique/special/ and if it is red ocean do the work. find the demographic, understand the competition. Figure out the four forces (five) and break down their busienss / profit models. If it is blue ocean, map the shift. Where are you taking the model vs the current solution framework. * Be persistent, as that is the measure of an idea. If you wont fight for it, why would anyone else? The best ideas do not always win. * Break down the presentation with an action list. what to do next. who to do it. time lines. * Make sure you would use it, if you were the customer. Otherwise, why would you build it? (unless you are in finance, then this doesn't really matter does it?) * Patent the idea before you give it to you boss. Just for the hell of it. You can always licence it to the company. :-)

Why not ask around your marketing/market research departments?

If you must DIY, here are some suggestions:

* Find the (estimated) number of users of the general product category (I'm sure googling will lead you to authentic sources publishing such data for your segment) and then estimate what percentage of this could be the potential users.

* Make a landing page describing the product in general and collect leads (to drive traffic to this, email your contacts who could be interested, request them to invite others, announce/post it on a few relevant forums/blogs etc.). Track the conversion rate and extrapolate it against the total category user base.

-HTH

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