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The Ultimate List of Questions about “Market Research” for a #Startup Asked By 30+ Venture Capitalists

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Market Research

I had a chance over the last 3 weeks to talk to many colleagues and associates in the Venture industry. Most were smaller, seed funds, with the largest fund size at $35 Million and the smallest at $8 Million.

They have between them about 210 companies they have invested seed capital in, with the average check size being about $315K. Over 70% were in the Silicon Valley.

The most important insight I gathered from my discussions was that if an entrepreneur was not looking to raise a follow on round after raising a seed round from a Micro VC, they were likely to be a much smaller company and hence not interesting enough for the seed investors.

If you are going after a small market, or slow growth one, your chances of getting funded by a Micro VC were negligible.

Which makes sense, but I think most entrepreneurs I speak to have the incorrect perception that Micro VC’s or seed funds as those that invest in smaller opportunities.

That cannot be further from the truth.

Micro VC’s or seed funds write earlier stage, smaller checks, but they are looking for the large, unicorns, as well, only earlier.

The number one question then that all the seed investors had was about the market.

It was not a simple question about market size alone.

So I set out to ask them about all the questions they had about a “startup’s market” and have documented them below.

As an entrepreneur, you need to review as many of these questions, but dont expect to be asked all these questions. It is likely a subset of these that your investor will likely ask you. It serves you best to review all these questions though.

Some of them may be redundant, but the fact that you can get the same question asked multiple times in different ways indicates that your potential investors will want to triage and understand the market a lot better before they make the bet.

  1. Is the market clearly identifiable (e.g. are there users who are willing to pay)?
  2. What is the size of the market (bottom up and top down)?
  3. How fast is the market growing (current growth trends)?
  4. How quickly will the market grow (potential for growth)?
  5. By what methods will the startup be able to reach it (are there high costs to get capture the market)?
  6. Can the market be segmented (are there lower hanging fruits to be had)?
  7. What types of people (demographic profile of buyers) buy this product/service in this market?
  8. Does the product/service have appeal based on geography (is this a first world solution)?
  9. What do potential or existing customers like about curren products/services?
  10. How quickly are other products (competitive growth) in the market growing?
  11. What makes the product/service unique relative to others in the marketplace (is there a chance the startup can grow quicker)?
  12. Do we have expertise (knowledge, expertise, etc.) in this market to help?
  13. Do we have connections in this market so make a difference?
  14. What are current buyers paying for comparable products/services?
  15. What is required to succeed in this market?
  16. How many competitors will the startup be competing against?
  17. Are there big incumbents in this market?
  18. How quickly are the incumbents growing?
  19. Has there been innovation in this market over the last few years / decades?
  20. Can the market support another player?
  21. How do competitors reach the market?
  22. What does the competitive landscape look like?
  23. Can this company achieve more than their fair share of market?
  24. Is the industry growing in size?
  25. What are other current trends within the industry?
  26. Who are the existing market leaders within the industry, and why are they successful?
  27. What type of marketing strategies are prevalent (Is the cost of acquiring customers high) within the industry?
  28. Is the industry seasonal (e.g. more food is catered during holidays)?
  29. Are there regulations (e.g. Uber and local taxi medallions) that affect the industry?
  30. Is there customer loyalty (e.g. it is hard to unseat ADP from payroll) within the industry?
  31. Is the industry sensitive to economic fluctuations (e.g. Match.com decreases matching during recessions)?
  32. Are there technological changes happening (e.g. Obamacare and patient records) or required in the industry?
  33. What are the financial characteristics (average selling price of products, average inventory turn, etc) of the industry?
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Creating Artificial Constraints as a Means to Innovation

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Artificial Constraints

Many of the entrepreneurs I know have created new innovative startups thanks to real constraints they had. For example, I was hearing AirBnB’s Brian Chesky, on the Corner Office podcast and he mentioned that when he and his cofounder were trying to get some money to get started and the only way to keep afloat was to “rent” their air bed they had in their room. That, then led to Air Bed and Breakfast, which is now AirBnB.

This was a real constraint they had – no money to “eat” so they had to make it happen somehow.

I have heard of many stories of innovation where in the protagonists had real constraints of either financial, technology, supply, demand, economic, social or any number of other characteristics.

The interesting story that I have also recently heard of how Facebook has “pivoted” from being a desktop offering to getting a significant part of their revenue from mobile is how they were given the arbitrary constraint of only accessing Facebook via the mobile phone.

So there are ways that you can create “artificial” constraints to force innovation to happen.

Most larger companies and some smaller ones as well, have to constantly find ways to create artificial constraints – to find a way to innovate and be more be a pioneer.

While some constraints are good – lack of funds at the early stage for example and lack of resources, there are entrepreneurs that are stymied by these constraints and those that will find  a way to seek a path to go forward.

I think this is a great way for you to think about innovating in a new space. If you have constraints, find a way to use it to your advantage.

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The Great Mobile App Migration of March 2020

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Mobile App Migration

Over the last few weeks as many in the world have been in lockdown, there has been a temporary “mobile app migration” happening. There are new apps downloaded and they replaced existing apps on the “home screen”.

While some of these apps are likely temporary use, for e.g. I have 6 “conferencing apps” – Zoom, Uber Conference, Webex, Google Hangouts, Blue Jeans and Goto Meeting. That is because of the many people I have conference calls with – each company seems to have chosen a different web conference solution.

Other apps seem like they will have staying power – Houseparty, for e.g. which has games, networking and video conferencing all built into one app to keep in touch with friends and relatives.

Houseparty

The apps that have moved away from my “home” screen, which I expect will come back once the crisis will be behind us include – Uber, Lyft and all the airline apps from Delta, Alaska and United.

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Perseverance with the Ability to Pivot on Data: 21 Traits We Look for in Entrepreneurs

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Perseverance with the Ability to Pivot

There are 5 key inflection points I have noticed which makes founders question their startup, to either make a call to continue working on their startup, pivot to a new problem or quit their startup altogether.

It is at these points that you really get to know the startup founder and their hunger and drive to be successful. I don’t think I can characterize those that choose to quit as “losers” or “quitters” because of many extraneous circumstances, but there is a lot of value that most investors see in entrepreneurs who face an uphill part of their journey to come out on the other side more confident and stronger.

These five inflection points are:

  1. When you have to get the first customers to use and pay for the product you have built after you have “shipped” an alpha / beta / first version. Entrepreneurs quit because they have not found the product-market-fit – because the customer don’t care about the product, there is no market need, or the product is really poorly built, or a host of other reasons.
  2. When you have to start to raise the first external round of financing from people you are not familiar with at all. Entrepreneurs quit because while it is hard to get customers and hire people, it is much more harder to get a smaller set of investors to part with their money, if you do not have “traction”, or “the right management team” or a “killer product”.
  3. When you have to push to break even (financially) and sustain the company to path of being self sufficient. Entrepreneurs quit at this stage because they have now the ability to do multiple things at the same time – grow revenues and manage costs, and many of them like to do one but realize it is hard to do that without affecting the other. So, rather than feel stuck they decide to quit.
  4. When you have to scale and grow faster that the competition – which might mean to hire faster, to get more customers, to drive more sales, or to completely rethink their problem statement and devise new ways to grow faster. Entrepreneurs quit at this point because they are consumed by the magnitude of the problem. They overassess the impact the competition will have on their company, give them too much credit or focus way too much on the competitors, thereby driving their company to the ground.
  5. At any point in the journey, when the founders lose the passion, vision or the drive to succeed. Entrepreneurs quit a these points because they have challenges with their co founder, they don’t agree with the direction they have to take, or encounter the “grass is greener on the other side” syndrome.

While I have observed many entrepreneurs at these stages at  discrete points in time, I have also had the opportunity to observe some entrepreneurs in the continuum, and I am going to give you my observations on 3 of the many folks I have known, who, have quit.

Perseverance separates great entrepreneurs from good ones
Perseverance separates great entrepreneurs from good ones

One went back to college to finish his MBA after getting a running business to a point of near breakeven, another found the business much harder than he originally thought he would and got a job at a larger company and the third was just unable to have the drive to go past 11 “no’s”‘ from angel investors.

Over the last 8 years, if I look at my deeper interactions with over 90 entrepreneurs, who I would have spent at least 100+ hours each, I would say that of the 24 people that are not longer in their startup, the one thing that stands out among the ones that persevere is that it is not “passion” or “vision” at all.

It is the inherent belief that they are solving a problem that they believe is their “calling”. They also don’t believe that there is any other problem that’s worth solving as much, even though there may be easier ways to make money.

So most of my questions of entrepreneurs to test whether they will pivot or quit are around why they want to solve this problem (which I am looking to see if they know enough about in the first place) versus any other one.

The answer to that question is the best indicator I have found to be the difference between the pivots, the leavers and the rest.

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