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Testing New Markets

Business 2.0 magazine's article called The Startup Facade presents some great points about launching a business.

Why not let it be market-driven?

The normal route to opening up a business is to "perceive" a market need, build a product or service and then try to market it.

When you do this valuable capital is used often leaving the business over-extended and then even when things are good the market demand usually lags more than expected because it takes time for marketing efforts to take effect.

Why not do some test marketing to see if the idea will fly and then start building the operations to support the marketing?

Some might think that is risky or even unethical - but is it any different than having a business that has spent all their capital building operations to then go out of business and not be able to provide the services offered?

The article also points to a key flaw in how most businesses advertise on the web. If someone is already going to the web and searching on "ABC Construction" they already want to do business with you. Most likely someone is searching on "Electrical Contractor Sacramento" or something else generic.

Posted by David Brown on October 16, 2006 07:42 AM|Permalink

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