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Testing a Business Venture's Viability

Guest post by: Fiona Mati

Article Overview: Pre start-up research is vital to any venture. If possible, the best way to learn about your prospective business is to work for someone else in that industry before venturing out on your own. This will make you more aware of the challenges you can expect to face in your venture. It will also give you the opportunity of getting some form of on the job training so you can manage your venture effectively. Background research in the industry will give you an indication of what to expect in terms of earnings and expenses.

Testing a Business Venture's Viability

Pre start-up research is vital to any venture. If possible, the best way to learn about your prospective business is to work for someone else in that industry before venturing out on your own. This will make you more aware of the challenges you can expect to face in your venture. It will also give you the opportunity of getting some form of on the job training so you can manage your venture effectively. Background research in the industry will give you an indication of what to expect in terms of earnings and expenses. If you can, produce a trial run of your product and sell it to those around you. You will get important feedback such as if your pricing is right or if the quality matches expected standards. This will also help you to get your first orders from your prospective retail outlets. By pre-testing your market in this way, you will gain a better understanding on customer expectations.

Keep your network open and find people you like and admire, who have good ethical values, have complementary skills and are smarter than you. These will be your mentors. It is also vital to hire people who have the skills that you lack. There is no use having five employees who can do your bookkeeping, but no one who knows marketing.

This next point may not send you into thralls of excitement, but whatever the enterprise, you must be financially savvy. Yes, you can't get away with not knowing basic accounting and cash flow management. Yes you might employ others to do it for you, but it you must be able to read and understand the financial reports they present to you. An entrepreneur also has to be in the know about the systems in place, such as procurement, invoicing and payroll. Nowadays, this needs a modicum of computer knowledge.

Know the niche market you are going for and go for it. Your business cannot supply every single individual in the world. It needs a business focus. Start with the market segment you want to sell to and from that point you can develop your business activities: how will you sell to them? What price can you charge? etc... Appropriate pre start-up research means that you have knowledge of the dynamics of the market you are targeting including information such as population, socio-demographic background, levels of demand for your products and services, and so on.

Remember to remain flexible and not commit yourself too early. Your first plan should be open to change and revision. You may find that your target market may not bring the returns on investment you initially envisaged and thus have to rework that part of your plan. A growth oriented business responds to changes in the market and so should you.

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Article Tags: business, entrepreneurs, ventures, viability



Related Forum Posts
Joint Ventures?? - I read this following paragraph in another business forum. Has anyone used joint ventures and had successful results? How do you go about setting up joint ventures? [quote:3vnvuml9]Joint Ventures have been, and always will be one of the most powerful marketing tactics ever, and for good reason. They are easy to set up, and they cost you nothing and if set up correctly will allow you to have more customers than you can handle! So if you promote a great product or service and want to expose it to more prospects, or you you seek ways to increase your sales, but aren't quite sure how to go about it you should definitely consider harnessing the power of Joint Ventures And the best part is that anybody can start using joint ventures to skyrocket their profits. It doesn't matter what you sell, or where you sell it.[/quote:3vnvuml9]
Re: Marketing a company - Get their contacts from someone who had been marketing to them before and do Joint Ventures with the guy
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: All the Secrets to Getting a Lot of Traffic Using Google AdW - Thanks, Zeke. Testing is required for any campaign. Tanny, let us know how you make out. I will try to get started with MSN during the next week. I have a bit to learn yet as it's different than Adwords. Alan
Re: THE Most Important Concern At Startup - That's true brokemet. Following through, implementing and testing your ideas is so important. Too many times people fall in love with their initial idea and myself included, will get stubborn with them. Testing is the only way of really finding out what works and what doesn't.


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