Ask Your Target Market
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
AskYourTargetMarket is Web 2.0 Launch Pad Finalist!
Five Companies Selected to Present on Stage and Receive Real-Time Audience Feedback.
The five finalists were selected from over 80 submissions based on their innovation and value to market. Each finalist will present for five minutes in front of Web 2.0 Expo's audience and judging panel of industry experts who will provide real-time feedback. Web 2.0 Expo's panel of judges includes: Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb, Dave McClure of 500 Hats and Ellen Pack of Elance. Brady Forrest, Web 2.0 Expo Co-Chair, will emcee the program.
"We want to congratulate Launch Pad finalists for their innovation in the Web 2.0 market," said Brady Forrest, Web 2.0 Expo Co-Chair. "This year's Launch Pad competition received over 80 submissions and the industry enthusiasm of all participating companies is notable. Judges selected companies that are transforming the market and will demonstrate promising applications relevant to the Web 2.0 Expo audience."
The following five companies will present at Web 2.0 Expo's Launch Pad on Wednesday, May 5 at 1:15 pm:
- AskYourTargetMarket.com: is a self-service target market research platform that includes a built-in consumer panel to answer surveys on demand
- Pearltrees: is a social curation tool that gives users a social way to organize, discover and share stuff they like on the Web
- Rhomobile: provides mobility solutions for the enterprise and creates cross-platform native applications for all major smartphones
- Strings: a social tracking and filtering platform to enable consumers to share and discover experiences that are meaningful and relevant to them
- Stupeflix: the Stupeflix Play platform transforms pages static content into engaging videos, on-the-fly
Additionally, Startup Weekend is an event where individuals come together to build a product and sometimes a company in two short days. A winner is chosen at the end of the event and this year's Launch Pad will include that winner on stage along with the five selected Launch Pad finalists.
A People's Choice Winner will be announced on-site at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco. Audience members will be asked to vote for their top choice based on the demos.
Votes will be tabulated in real-time and projected live on screen. All presenters are Launch Pad winners and benefit from the instantaneous feedback provided by the judging panel and the audience.SOURCE TechWeb www.prnewswire.com
To learn more about the 2010 Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco or register visit: http://www.web2expo.com/sf
Monday, April 19, 2010
AskYourTargetMarket.com co-sponsored Startup Weekends!
The past few days were very special for us. We were honored to co-sponsor StartupWeekend in Boulder, CO and Dallas, TX.
Here's my experience in a few words:
There were 35-40 smart talented people in one room (most meeting each other for the first time), sparked by tsunami-entrepreneurship-tech-energy-spirit, Wi-Fi, a bunch of Macbook Pros in the room = AWESOME 3 day event.
After a dozen of pitches on Friday, the group voted for the best business idea and formed teams around the most interesting people and startup concepts. Friday night, Saturday and Sunday morning were used to define the business model, come up with strategies, marketing, logo, slogans and building prototype sites with some working functionality, preparing decks and polishing pitches.
On Sunday by 3:30 teams started presenting their projects and the judges selected the winners. Now it's up to the teams to use this steroid start and build real profitable companies or just keep in touch with new friends and move forward.
Our goal was to help teams to use our online survey tool during the event to get real world feedback on their concepts and assumptions. As expected - it went very well! We sponsored a few surveys and got back awesome stats that helped teams to shift some priorities, confirm some expectations and make the right decisions. Interesting fact: the event's format put everybody in a very stressful time frame, but in reality, if you can't do it in 48 hours and on 0 budget - you may never be able to pull it off! "Be successful or fail fast" is the best advice the startups received this weekend. AskYourTargetMarket.com definitely succeeded in delivering the valuable data right there and then. All surveys were fulfilled within 90 minutes (150 responses with open-ended answers) and gave them immediate nationwide US consumer feedback.
I'm happy and excited to see our company helping entrepreneurs find their groove, and help such awesome events to be more successful and meaningful. We made new friends, did some usability testing watching people using our system, and definitely had a great time!
For more information:
http://boulder.startupweekend.org/
twitter hash tag: @swBoulder
All photos
Cheers,
Lev
CEO and Co-founder
AskYourTargetMarket.com
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Agile Market Research
We live in a time when ideas for products and services can be acted upon with a fraction of the cost and resources required even a few short years ago. With an eye on fast time to market, passionate entrepreneurs are often tempted to "code first, ask questions later". Its not that entrepreneurs don't want every advantage possible, they just don't always realize the need to validate concepts that seem so clear to them. Especially in these times of rapid development cycles it's easy to forget how slowing down a bit to conduct market research can actually help companies go further, faster. The right use of research can identify opportunity (features and functions that hadn't yet come to mind) as well as save time and reduce risk (guess we didn't need to code that XYZ feature - looks like nobody needs it) and make a tremendous impact on the company success.
Lean startup model suggests validating business idea with as little resources as possible. Is there a conflict between this model and a need to invest thousands of dollars in the research before implementation? You bet there is if you think about classic market research that costs an arm and a leg, takes a few weeks and is typically very complex to conduct. By the time you get your results you may break your budget and loose the momentum. What works for the large corporations is not always an answer for the startups and small businesses.
The good news is that market research evolves as rapidly as other services and available today in the same agile affordable style that became a standard of Web 2.0. Leveraging social networks and power of internet enables market research providers to help companies to set up and complete their studies at a fraction of the classical cost and within a few hours/days. Using this new trend you can wake up at night with your brilliant business idea, write and launch a survey and by morning get responses from US consumers that fit your target market demographic profile. Business validation and market research becomes available for the rest of us and can help at many stages of your business' lifecycle.
So we know that there are different stages in a company lifecycle. Different research strategies and techniques are effective for each stage and can help finding you the best odds that lead to the success. Here are some stages of research to consider:
Phase 1: Idea Exploration
Many disruptive or innovative ideas get their start by understanding the latent or unmet needs of a particular group. Latent needs are those that often aren't seen as a need by end users - they are seen as a problem or an annoyance. They often don't know that a solution is possible. In this stage of research it's important to observe and ask questions, the problems you uncover might be bigger issues than the one you had already identified. Consider the days before camera phones - people still enjoyed taking pictures but they didn't always have a camera available when they needed it. They often experienced photo worthy events when they didn't have a camera handy. They had a latent need to be able to take photos more often. What did they have with them? Car keys, wallet and their cell phone. Hence, adding a camera to one of these would help solve the unmet need.
Phase 2: Idea Validation
Ok - you proved that there is a pain and that your concept may solve it - hence there is got to be a business opportunity. Check how large it is and what's the best way of approaching the market with your innovation. You can do that before you have your first customer and/or before the first line of code is written. Your objective here is to get a broad test reaction to the idea and to learn who the target market really is. Also known as a concept test. You don't always need to have something to show at this stage - it's often best to simply explain the basic part of the concept and leave out the details until they have a good idea of the core of the idea.
Important to understand more than just appeal of a concept.
A thorough concept test often includes digging into questions such as:
· Is it appealing?
· Does it satisfy a need?
· Is it unique and different?
· Is it believable - this will work?
· Does it offer value for money?
Phase 3: Continuous User feedback.
Your alpha or beta is live and you have your first adopters Congratulations, if you made it here equipped with research knowledge you have made your first investment with much higher chances for success than an average startup. It's time to ask your first users' feedback – create feedback loop and also don't forget to re-test broad market to see if concept has evolved to appeal to a broader audience or if an unexpected market sector is even more interested in your service/product than the one you are targeting. While getting feedback from existing customers can be done "in house" you will need some external market research tools to get access to the fresh outside look at your offering.
Phase 4: Logo and branding research
You're lucky if your first name and logo are well received but in most cases we just don't have enough time and recourses to do it right from the beginning. If the model turned out to be a failure, then who cares if you have a killer logo. This is a good time to look around and see if your corporate identity, logo, branding, name of the company, site name are conveying the right messages and helping you to build a stronger brand. You don't have many users yet so it's not too late for a redesign.
Use hybrid - existing users and outside consumers research to choose the best logo and build a strong brand. Get to know what to say and how to say it, get used to the new infrastructure you just created and about to explode to a larger scale.
Phase 5: Brand extension and new product development
Exploring ideas that build on original product or support adjacent and complementary markets, helping solve sudden crises and keep growing. It's a good time to introduce more complex market research solutions, dedicate larger budgets and hiring professional consultants. You have the big boys to compete with and you have a good chance of beating them if you are smarter about exploring new ideas.
Lev Mazin
Lean startup model suggests validating business idea with as little resources as possible. Is there a conflict between this model and a need to invest thousands of dollars in the research before implementation? You bet there is if you think about classic market research that costs an arm and a leg, takes a few weeks and is typically very complex to conduct. By the time you get your results you may break your budget and loose the momentum. What works for the large corporations is not always an answer for the startups and small businesses.
The good news is that market research evolves as rapidly as other services and available today in the same agile affordable style that became a standard of Web 2.0. Leveraging social networks and power of internet enables market research providers to help companies to set up and complete their studies at a fraction of the classical cost and within a few hours/days. Using this new trend you can wake up at night with your brilliant business idea, write and launch a survey and by morning get responses from US consumers that fit your target market demographic profile. Business validation and market research becomes available for the rest of us and can help at many stages of your business' lifecycle.
So we know that there are different stages in a company lifecycle. Different research strategies and techniques are effective for each stage and can help finding you the best odds that lead to the success. Here are some stages of research to consider:
Phase 1: Idea Exploration
Many disruptive or innovative ideas get their start by understanding the latent or unmet needs of a particular group. Latent needs are those that often aren't seen as a need by end users - they are seen as a problem or an annoyance. They often don't know that a solution is possible. In this stage of research it's important to observe and ask questions, the problems you uncover might be bigger issues than the one you had already identified. Consider the days before camera phones - people still enjoyed taking pictures but they didn't always have a camera available when they needed it. They often experienced photo worthy events when they didn't have a camera handy. They had a latent need to be able to take photos more often. What did they have with them? Car keys, wallet and their cell phone. Hence, adding a camera to one of these would help solve the unmet need.
Phase 2: Idea Validation
Ok - you proved that there is a pain and that your concept may solve it - hence there is got to be a business opportunity. Check how large it is and what's the best way of approaching the market with your innovation. You can do that before you have your first customer and/or before the first line of code is written. Your objective here is to get a broad test reaction to the idea and to learn who the target market really is. Also known as a concept test. You don't always need to have something to show at this stage - it's often best to simply explain the basic part of the concept and leave out the details until they have a good idea of the core of the idea.
Important to understand more than just appeal of a concept.
A thorough concept test often includes digging into questions such as:
· Is it appealing?
· Does it satisfy a need?
· Is it unique and different?
· Is it believable - this will work?
· Does it offer value for money?
Phase 3: Continuous User feedback.
Your alpha or beta is live and you have your first adopters Congratulations, if you made it here equipped with research knowledge you have made your first investment with much higher chances for success than an average startup. It's time to ask your first users' feedback – create feedback loop and also don't forget to re-test broad market to see if concept has evolved to appeal to a broader audience or if an unexpected market sector is even more interested in your service/product than the one you are targeting. While getting feedback from existing customers can be done "in house" you will need some external market research tools to get access to the fresh outside look at your offering.
Phase 4: Logo and branding research
You're lucky if your first name and logo are well received but in most cases we just don't have enough time and recourses to do it right from the beginning. If the model turned out to be a failure, then who cares if you have a killer logo. This is a good time to look around and see if your corporate identity, logo, branding, name of the company, site name are conveying the right messages and helping you to build a stronger brand. You don't have many users yet so it's not too late for a redesign.
Use hybrid - existing users and outside consumers research to choose the best logo and build a strong brand. Get to know what to say and how to say it, get used to the new infrastructure you just created and about to explode to a larger scale.
Phase 5: Brand extension and new product development
Exploring ideas that build on original product or support adjacent and complementary markets, helping solve sudden crises and keep growing. It's a good time to introduce more complex market research solutions, dedicate larger budgets and hiring professional consultants. You have the big boys to compete with and you have a good chance of beating them if you are smarter about exploring new ideas.
Lev Mazin
Friday, March 5, 2010
Ask Your Target Market - Spring Release!
We love our early adopters!
Thanks to your advice and encouragement we have added loads of new features, emerged out of beta and continue growing fast. We'd like to share some exciting news with you!
FASTER THAN EVER
Since our closed beta we have doubled our consumer panel capacity. Now you can launch your survey and expect it to be completed in just a couple of hours. More complicated requests with narrow demographics, etc., will take longer, but it's still blazing fast. Give it a try >>
BRANCHED LOGIC SURVEYS
You can now create branched logic (skip logic) surveys. It enables you to ask a unique follow-up question based upon the answer chosen to the prior question.Drill down and really understand your target customers for the same low price. Check out a sample live stats report here.
BLOG WIDGET
We are pleased to announce that you can now easily publish the results of your survey by embedding our widget into your site or blog. Just go to the statistics of your completed or in-progress survey, adjust the widget width and grab the embed code. See an example >>
OUR CONSUMER PANEL
Speaking about capacity: our 100% US consumer panel members have answered close to 5 million surveys. In our commitment to excellence we have incorporated many unique quality assurance features such as TrustScore and DoubleCheckd. Learn more >>
Thanks to your advice and encouragement we have added loads of new features, emerged out of beta and continue growing fast. We'd like to share some exciting news with you!
FASTER THAN EVERSince our closed beta we have doubled our consumer panel capacity. Now you can launch your survey and expect it to be completed in just a couple of hours. More complicated requests with narrow demographics, etc., will take longer, but it's still blazing fast. Give it a try >>
BRANCHED LOGIC SURVEYSYou can now create branched logic (skip logic) surveys. It enables you to ask a unique follow-up question based upon the answer chosen to the prior question.Drill down and really understand your target customers for the same low price. Check out a sample live stats report here.
BLOG WIDGETWe are pleased to announce that you can now easily publish the results of your survey by embedding our widget into your site or blog. Just go to the statistics of your completed or in-progress survey, adjust the widget width and grab the embed code. See an example >>
OUR CONSUMER PANELSpeaking about capacity: our 100% US consumer panel members have answered close to 5 million surveys. In our commitment to excellence we have incorporated many unique quality assurance features such as TrustScore and DoubleCheckd. Learn more >>
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
AskYourTargetMarket – Surveys of Targeted Market Panels for $30
There are a lot of survey tools out there and the Internet has made conducting and getting survey results easier than ever. Market research aimed at specific markets or demographics, however, aren’t as easy. This valuable information usually requires a lot of know-how and money to get.
Not anymore. AskYourTargetMarket.com has publicly launched after having been in private beta since appearing at the TechCrunch50 in 2009. This tool allows you to quickly and easily build surveys and narrow a target market of focused responders.
The entire app narrows down to a fairly straight-forward dashboard from which you can build your survey and desired demographics/market. You start with a page of simple selections to be made, using sliders and drop-down boxes. Age and income ranges are on sliders, for instance, while race, education, and so forth are drop-downs.
You then use a slider to choose the number of responses you’d like (starting at 50 and going up to 400). Then you’re ready to write your survey.
AskYourTargetMarket can do both straight surveys (a list of questions that everyone is asked) or a Branched Logic survey, for which different answers move to different questions. This allows for some real depth to your survey.
Finally, you can choose to have your survey DoubleCheckd. With this, AskYourTargetMarket will wait for three or more hours after your survey has been given to the panelists and then give it to them again (they won’t know it’s coming a second time). Only those surveys which have like answers on both sessions will be considered valid. This can increase accuracy in many scenarios.
Overall, the AskYourTargetMarket tool is extremely useful for most businesses. The results can be valuable and the price tag at $29.95, to start, is definitely affordable.
http://www.scommerce.com/askyourtargetmarket-surveys-of-targeted-market-panels-for-30/
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