The 7 Key Roles of Market Research in Startup Success

1. Identifying Market Trends

The first role of market research in startup success is to identify market trends. Market trends can be anything from changes in consumer behavior to shifts in the economy. By staying up-to-date on market trends, startups can ensure they’re positioning themselves in the right direction and making the right decisions.

2. Assessing Consumer Behavior

The second role of market research is to assess consumer behavior. Understanding your target audience and what they want is crucial in determining the success of your business. Market research provides insight into consumer behavior, such as purchasing habits, needs, and preferences, allowing startups to tailor their offerings to meet their audience’s needs.

3. Determining Your Target Audience

The third role of market research is to determine your target audience. Knowing who your target audience is, where they are located, and what they want can help you make informed decisions about your business. Market research provides valuable information about your target audience, allowing startups to create products and services that meet their needs.

 “In my years of entrepreneurship, determining your target audience is critical to business success. Especially in today’s world where social media has shifted the way we consume information, there’s so much more content we’re consistently exposed to whether we’re aware of it or not.

Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter because we’ve adapted this “scrolling” method of information consumption. So if you’re trying to be heard in an already “loud” market, you need to stand out. Your business needs to find a way to differentiate itself from all the other noise, so the right people can connect with you, your brand, your product, and/or service.

That’s why it’s fundamental to know your target market.

What’s their biggest need? What’s their greatest problem? What’s the pain point in their lives that keeps them up at night? What do they spend the most time researching? What kind of YouTube videos do they consistently watch? What type of podcasts do they listen to?

You get where I’m going with this?

The better you know your market, the better you can position your brand as the solution to their problems. In a world full of noise and confusion, be the clarity your ideal client/customer is looking for.

The better you know who that person is, the more impactful and magnetic your messaging and branding become. You’ll not only attract the right customers but also the right team members who are excited about being part of your company.”  — Angelo Liloc, Founder of Blueline Ventures

4. Competitor Analysis

The fourth role of market research is to conduct competitor analysis. Knowing your competition is crucial in determining your competitive advantage and positioning your business in the market. Market research provides valuable information about your competitors, including their strengths, weaknesses, and market share, allowing startups to make informed decisions about how to position themselves in the market.

5. Product Development and Testing

The fifth role of market research is to aid in product development and testing. Before launching a product, it’s essential to understand if there’s a demand for it and if it meets the needs of your target audience. Market research provides valuable information about consumer preferences, allowing startups to tailor their products to meet the needs of their audience. It also helps to identify any potential roadblocks that could prevent a product from being successful.

6. Pricing Strategy

The sixth role of market research is to help determine a pricing strategy. Pricing can make or break a product, and it’s essential to get it right. Market research provides valuable information about what consumers are willing to pay for a product, allowing startups to price their products appropriately and remain competitive in the market.

7. Understanding the Market Landscape

The final role of market research in startup success is to help understand the market landscape. Market research provides an overview of the market, including its size, growth rate, and potential for growth. This information allows startups to determine their position in the market and make informed decisions about their future.

 “Before you start your company and throughout the initial startup, the vast majority of your success is predicated on understanding the market landscape to guide your business. Founders need to guide with a clear vision of what their competitors are doing, the offerings that exist and are going to exist, but also the consumers changing requirements. 

And many times throughout the company’s lifecycle, pivoting to address the changing market landscape is more vital than following the initial internal goals.”  — Michael Sassano, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Somai Pharmaceuticals

“So, to give you some ideas, I support just a research I completed these days to prepare an elevator pitch in healthcare and life science. Hupry, DLT Deeptech, of which I am CEO, is bringing the idea of distributed privacy to reality.

As you know, in the world of Electronic Health Records, the main problems are caused by the non-interoperability of data, privacy, and the high costs that block, consequently, the possibility of secondary data use and the advancement of Precision Medicine (i.e., personalized medicine depending on who “you are” and your actual data) is completely blocked.

Everyone says the focus must be on the problem, the competitive analysis, or the solution you want. This is all at a lower layer than the market. The size and ability to fit into a given market is something we cannot change, so starting with the market is ground zero for any analysis.

Starting from the market is not an analysis to be taken lightly; we often make mistakes because we are led by vanity metrics or simply because we need to analyze the numbers and study.

 I want to give you an example to simplify the concept, and to do that; I will ask you a question: What is the current potential market for blockchain? If you browse the sites or read the whitepapers of the various protocols, you will always see the same answer, “blockchain is the future with billions of users..,” this is NOT true.

Today, the access point between Web2 and Web3 is the Wallet; talking to the Wallet is a complex activity. Today, the actual market for blockchain is simply the number of registered developers, for example, du, Github, and 100M.

This example explains how market analysis must be done at various “heights,” as if you were using Google Maps for your business.” — Nicola Davolio, CEO of Hupry