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Entrepreneurs – Testing Your Product Ideas

Written by: Lee Lister

Article Overview: You’ve got some great new product ideas but are jot sure if they are going to be profitable, so how do you test them?

Entrepreneurs – Testing Your Product Ideas

You’ve got some great new product ideas but are jot sure if they are going to be profitable, so how do you test them?

Peers: Well, first of all ask around your family and friends and see as to whether they think it is a great idea whether they would buy it and how much they would be willing to pay for it. Now they are going to be polite to you so you should temper the results with this factor.

Competition: Have a good look around your competitors and see if they are doing anything that is similar to your proposed products. If not have a good think as to why not – could be they have tried it and found it not to be profitable.

Internet Search: Do some in depth internet searching to see if there is anything like your new product. You might also find case studies of what went right or wrong.

Forum Search: Search around some user forums and see the kind of things that people are searching for. Put down some feelers about your new product – be careful that you do not declare it until it is ready.

Magazines and Newspapers: Look through the trade and local magazines and newspapers to see if anything similar has been mentioned. Your local library has back copies.

Read Research: Read white papers and research papers on the area, ask some boffins if available.

Street Surveys: Set up some street surveys asking if the problem you are solving is a problem and what solutions they have found.

Focus Groups: Get them to discuss your ideas, review your prototypes and listen to their answers and discussions to make improvements to your products. You might even get some new ideas.

Ask Experts: Ask marketing experts, sales people etc. about your proposals.

Ask the Ad Agencies: If your company is large enough to potentially employ an ad agency, then put the advertising out to tender and listen to their ideas as they make the pitches. Once you have chosen your agency, they will come up with more ideas for you.

Ask Your Staff: Ask inside your company, particularly amongst those that are customer facing.

Key Customers: Ask you key customers what kind of problems they are trying to solve and tell them a bit about your solutions.

Test Runs: Undertake a few test runs with your proposed products before you fully commit yourself.

Remember if the results are not favourable, you can still make changes to your proposed product, or you will have enough information to set up some new products. Good luck.

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Article Tags: entrepreneur, market research, market testing, new prodcut testing, new product, testing



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Re: Take Action - This is a verse from a poem written by Felix Dennis one of the Britain's wealthest self-made Entrepreneurs. It hit the nail on the head that you need action more than anything Ideas? We've had 'em Since Eve decieved Adam, But take it from me Execution's the key. This is taken from his book "How to Get Rich"
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.
Re: The Importance of Testing - Even the fact that you outsource your business opportunities, you already are testing different firms there. Testing has already been part of every business even if some aren't recognizing it at all since they're already certain to go through a fixed goal to focus on. For me, trial and error can really take a lot of time although seeing the results and evaluating them will also help everyone to make it easier to start it right in the future and prevent wasting any.
CEOs and Email - Slaves? - I wonder if the emails they are responding to are filtered thru their assistants first 'cos they seem to spend a lot of their off hours responding to them. True they are successful but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that price. I'd be interested to know what's the in the typical day planner of Entrepreneurs on the Forum. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than Paid Employees- so it would be interesting to view the contrast.


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