Uncovering a new business idea with a simple survey

Discussions
#1

I am looking to uncover pain points from various industries to come up with a business idea. I have included a link to a short survey (<5minutes) below. I’d be happy to share the results with people in return for filling it out.

https://goo.gl/forms/5OrJ5tmtX2llPrbR2

Otherwise, any thoughts on this method of coming up with a business idea are welcome. The responses I’ve received so far have been interesting and I’m currently investigating one idea as a result.

Questions are also below so feel free to message me on here with your answers if you prefer that to the survey.

  1. What industry do you work in?
  2. What is your role at your company?
  3. How do you fit into your company’s department structure? Overall in the company?
  4. What is a typical day like at work?
  5. What are your top 3 challenges you face in your job?
  6. How have you dealt with or solved those problems so far?
  7. If you could wave a magic wand and instantly have a solution to any/all of those problems…what would the solution be?
  8. How do you discover new software products for work? Do you need any approval to try them?
  9. What is your budget like? Who has to approve your purchases?
#2

Not sure how you think the questions will lead to actionable insight.

The questions are very very broad.
Neither the industry or the type of job positions that your interviewees have is somewhat constraint, or is it?

#3

Here’s what I would suggest for market research instead of a survey in this case.

Use facebook as a market research tool. People think facebook ads as just a marketing platform, but it’s really just a way to reach specific groups effectively.

If you have a few hundred dollars, I would run a small fb ad campaign with the goal simply being reach. Create an audience that is specific, but not too broad (I like to keep my audiences larger than 500k in early stages). The goal of the campaign should be set to Reach (number of people who see the ad).

Run a few different ads with various value propositions in the headline. Then send any traffic to a simple landing page with a brief explanation of the product, and then ask them to “join the wait list.”

The goal here is not to grow a wait list. You are trying to do the following:

  1. Test which value proposition generates the most interest
  2. Establish baseline cost-per-metrics for top funnel engagement. CPM, CPC, and CTR help you determine how responsive these groups will be, how competitive the audience is, and what audience is ideal.

It only takes a few hundred bucks to get an initial feel for a market and their interests. Good luck!

#4

Any particular landing page generator you’d use to create the various value props?

#5

I prefer to keep it to one landing page, and use the ads to test value props. If you are trying to keep this very low-budget, just create a squarespace account and use a template. Unbounce and other similar services will be more expensive but offer more options.