Small Business Ideas. Market Research Worksheet. Adapted from content excerpted from the American Express® OPEN Small Business Network This worksheet can help you come up with a business idea by figuring out what the market needs.
Don't be afraid to be outlandish; sometimes the best ideas sound crazy at first. And if they have some flaws, just put them aside and keep searching. When you are contemplating business possibilities, keep in mind that you don't have to stay in the business you start forever. You can run a business for a few years until you come up with an off-shoot idea or are in a position to start a more capital-intensive business. Keep your business antenna up, with an eye out for unfilled opportunities Research the market by: Reading the newspaper and magazinesWatching televisionTalking to peopleGoing to the mall What products or services would you want that you haven't been able to find?
Springwise, Your Daily Fix of Entrepreneurial Ideas. Visit Merrill Edgeâs Face Retirement website, and youâll be confronted by your future self.
The site invites you to take a photo with your webcam and input your age. Then facts about retirement and savings flash on the screenââ46 percent of Americans have saved less than $10,000 for retirementâ reads oneâwhile the program digitally âagesâ your photo, and you are soon staring at a slightly animated, nodding, blinking, more wrinkly version of yourself. Merrill Edge is betting that the statistics alone wonât scare you into saving, but being confronted by an older version of yourself will. âThatâs not a stranger youâre saving for,â reads the site, âitâs the future you.â In a commercial put out by Prudential, a cartoon version of a man sits side by side with an older version of himself. âThis is you,â says the spokesman. âThis is you in 40 years . . . you like you, right?
 It continues, âOne-third of you arenât saving enough for the older you. 5 Essential Ingredients of a Winning Business Idea. Ideas come in all shapes and sizes.
But my experiences and the experiences of my many students have taught me that winning ideas -- ideas that are profitable, quick to license, and inexpensive to venture -- share specific traits. Namely, they pave a smooth path to success by clearing the most difficult barriers to bringing a product to market before an entrepreneur has invested significant amounts of time, energy and money into an idea. If your idea doesn't have the following five ingredients, you may want to assess how much you're willing to put on the line to see it succeed. 1. A substantial market. Years ago, I read an article about the need for more space on product labels from medicine bottles to beverages. A good indicator of a substantial market is the existence of other products that aim to solve the same problem yours does. Springwise, Your Daily Fix of Entrepreneurial Ideas. The best startups in Europe, from Berlin to Helsinki and Lisbon. Dan Burn-Forti Each year, we ask Europe's investors, entrepreneurs and technologists which local startups are "hot" - that is, being talked about as going places.
For our first review in 2011, we found a payments company in Stockholm called Klarna. In Paris an advertising outfit, Criteo. Tel Aviv had face.com, Moscow KupiVp, Berlin SoundCloud, the Netherlands WeTransfer, Helsinki Rovio...You get the idea. These businesses were on their way to making a huge impact in the European ecosystem. This year, our methodology remains the same - we speak to dozens of people within our network to research each city - but the startups do not. We start with Helsinki (below) and will be revealing the top 10 startups from 10 cities including London, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Barcelona, Istanbul, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Paris over the coming week. If you can't wait to see which startups made the list in each region, pick up a copy of the latest issue of WIRED magazine, on sale now.
Tips & Tools. Market research for your business. 03mktres. About Cobweb - Cobweb Information. .....Leeds Libraries & Information Services - Athena.