New Business Idea Most new businesses can be described as ‘me-too’, in the sense that they are providing products or services for which there is an established market. This means that somebody on the web will be searching for a solution to that need. You, the entrepreneur, must find a way to persuade sufficient customers to buy from you rather than existing suppliers. More specifically you need to know if you can win that custom at a cost that still leaves you a profit. Because the market is established, it is normally possible to test customer reaction without the major investment of producing your own product first. You can find a partner to supply the product or service sufficiently close to your eventual plan to be able to conduct trial sales on the internet. Genuinely innovative ideas are harder to test. First of all, customers will not be searching for them because they will not be aware of them. Secondly you cannot do a trial sale if you don’t have at least a similar product – and the further away you get from a genuine sale situation, the greater the danger of the test giving a false result. For such businesses you may have to concentrate on proving the need before you invest in the full solution.  You need to know how much each new customer is going to cost to acquire. To make best use of TestYourMarket: Define carefully what you are testing  Work out how to avoid incurring major expense before you know if you have a profitable market We need to be sure that if you generate enquiries from a customer – and certainly if you collect any money from them – those customers are going to be happy with the result.  You must ensure your first customers are happy so they can start the process of referring others. Case Study From the experience of Stephen Orr, founder of TestYourMarket My first startup business was to sell an electronic energy-saving device for consumers. I recruited a small team of sales people, equipped them with cars and opened an office. Once the overhead costs were incurred I found that sales did not follow – and I lost my shirt! Only after several years of product development and a complete switch of market focus did the company finally make a profit. By that time I had been forced out. But with TestYourMarket, I would have set up a website and discovered the sales problem. Then I could have tested the alternative commercial market and proved the need. Finally we would have designed a new version of the product to meet that need. – and I would still be an owner of the business and in profit. We have prepared a structure for your planning to help you prepare your offer in a way that we can easily turn into an effective website. Not every new business idea will find this structure useable. Please ask for more help and advice as necessary. NB Some product areas we do not promote: adult sites and anything that might cause consumer complaints. Home | New Business   New Business Startups  New Business Idea  Low Sales-Value Sites | Market Research | Test Market | Profit Plan | About Us | Contact Us | Start Now! |