Often times we get a brilliant idea ( in our opinion) and we go right ahead to register a company, open an office and mass produce the goods or mass advertise the service only for no one to show up on our door step despite the great interior of the business premises.
Its often called, build and they will come. It is like setting a tender looking piece of beef as bait without realizing that the bush is full of herbivores.
Today I want to take you though a process that will help you to figure out if apart from you there is anyone else interested in the product or service that you are so excited about.
1. Is there a need?
Almost every business begins with a hypothesis. A sample hypothesis could be that people with pet dogs need a place that provides daycare services for their pet while they are at work.
If this is your hypothesis, before you go and let a room in upperhill and buy dog cages and hire dog attendants you need to have figured out a few things.
- How many people in upperhill have pet dogs?
- How are those people currently doing with their dogs while they are eat work?
- What competencies do I have to handle the dogs?
- What legal requirements to I need to fulfill in order to run such a business?
- Do dog owners care how their dogs spend the day?
These and other questions help you to identify if there is really a need worth meeting. Before you start getting into lease agreements for office space you need to find out the answers to these questions from as large a pool of the potential customers as you can.
2. How big is the market?
The second important question is to quantify the size of the market. If you identify that there is actually a need then finding out how big this market is is essential in order to come up with projections and determine if this can be a profitable venture.
There is usually a break even quantity which in this case could be the number of dogs that need to be enrolled in the day care programme for you to meet your costs.
You could find that you have a great idea but the market is nonexistent. If this is the case you can begin to scout for a new market or shelve the idea until a time when the market is large enough.
