Everyday Risk as DIY Market Research
Learn by doing
I recently read an article about ‘everyday risk’. The article defined these types of risks as being ‘just outside’ your comfort zone, ones that make life ‘more colorful’.
Starting a business, regardless of size, is a risk. It can be way outside your comfort zone, not at all like an ‘everyday’ risk! The two biggest risks? Money and time.
As I’ve been talking about here, using my 4-step Finding Your Wedge framework can save you both. Having a framework to do some initial market research for your business reduces the amount of time you need to spend trying to figure out how to start. And, conveniently, it also saves you money because…it saved you time. It also saves you money because you’ll head out on your entrepreneurial journey in a more direct way. No one wants to ‘double back’ a bunch of times! (Pivot, yes; double back, no.)
In the Finding Your Wedge framework, Steps 2 and 3 are really where you set out to learn about your niche and find ways that your product/service fit into it. (Just a reminder, subscribers here get their very own copy of the framework.)
There’s another way to really dive in a bit deeper to steps 2 and 3. It’s a method I’ve used – and still experiment with – and that is platforms.
Let me define that a bit better.
Have you ever heard of Fiverr? Upwork? Udemy? Teachers Pay Teachers?
These are all examples of platforms. The real engine of these platforms is their contributors, the people who offer services or classes or products on the platforms. Each of these platforms works for different people who offer different things.
For instance, Fiverr is definitely a place to go for offering freelance-type services. If you are a course creator, check out Udemy. Do you create learning materials for school-age kids? Teachers Pay Teachers is for you.
There are a million (unofficial, unresearched number here, don’t hold me to it) platforms out there from the general (Fiverr) to the very specific (Teachers Pay Teachers).
Each has something in common.
They are very low risk.
But there is something else about these platforms, quite a few, in fact, that can help an entrepreneur out.
1. These platforms are free to use. Create and post your product/service to your heart’s content. You pay them only when you’ve sold something. The platforms I’ve worked with take a percentage of your sale, but only after you’ve sold something.
2. Learn by doing. Have you heard that one before? It’s pretty much true. Yes, you’ll need to educate yourself about how to post your product/service on the various platforms, but that’s pretty easy. The thing is, you can edit and update your offering as much as you want and learn some things pretty quickly. Not getting the response you thought you would? Edit your offering. Getting attention from the wrong type of customer? Edit your offering. Super busy but realizing you aren’t making enough money? Edit your offering/price. You will learn a ton about what you are doing and then you can take those learnings onto your own ‘platform’, by creating courses and offering products through your own email list.
3. You’ll get real interaction with real customers. Definitely an extension of point 2 above. This one is a very quick teacher! The other thing about these types of platforms is that customers can leave reviews. That can sound scary at first but can give you tons of insight and direction.
4. You can do this with little to no marketing. Really. Your only marketing is coming up with an appealing listing title and good keywords so people on the platform can find you. Those are easy to do and not time consuming. And, as in point 2 above, you can edit your listing over time until you see what your customers want. This really is a bigger deal in my mind than most give it credit for. If you are like me, you are good at what you do, but your primary skill is not marketing. Know what I mean? You can get better at both marketing and ‘your thing’ – cheaply, low risk-ly – by starting out on these types of platforms.
Honestly, you may not make a bunch of money on these platforms. But for a lot of people, myself included, offerings on these platforms can be temporary (more on that later) with a goal of learning by doing and being able to apply that in your business’ next iteration. Once you’ve got your learnings and are ready to move on, you can. And you’ll do it with some great DIY market research!
See you next week.
Did I mention subscribers get the Finding Your Wedge framework for free?
Here’s how to do that: