It has been a very interesting week so far as we are getting to know each other pretty well. I really believe the team is even more important than the idea. We are still a relatively new team and as we learn more about each other, two things have struck me so far, the work ethic and the casual atmosphere. We are very dedicated and work hard to not only meet our deadlines,but continuously improve our idea/product. Reading this you are probably telling yourself these guys probably don't have much fun while working. Well think again, we are little weird and have more fun than work. This is essential to building the family spirit that is vital t o the success of every startup. Going forward, I would want us to challenge each other, motivate one another and strive to create amazing products.
Now onto the idea, I like what we have so far and this week has been about refining the idea to make it more attractive and valuable to our customers. One of the things I have being looking at was to create a niche site that filters and provides all the ethical deals online. I firmly believe that if we can build a community around our site we will have a greater chance of success. The results of our market research,hypothesis, board meetings and conversations will be interesting and will give us a much better picture as to what strategy makes sense niche vs general. Although I am sure Evan must have talked about this, I am not a huge admirer of market research because sometimes consumers need to see and use the product before realizing they ever needed it.
Alright that is it for now, stay tuned for what route we decide to follow(niche vs general) and much more. Your comments and feedback will be greatly appreciated, until then ciao.
Peter
Your venture seems very promising and there are tons of people out there that use coupons religiously. How would you be competing with other apps and websites that are already out there that people are currently using? And I agree with you on the market research point. Sometimes people need to see something to get the full picture and really understand what it is that you are talking about. Are you going to do this using a website?
ReplyDeleteHi mdowhaniuk thanks for your comment and yes you are right there are many coupon sites out there.To compete what we are offering are personalized coupons based the users location, interests etc. Secondly we are focusing on a niche market (ethical coupons).Finally we are not a coupon site as rather we aggregate all ethical coupons on the web and offline into our site. Coupons are just a start and we plan on expanding as we build our community. In terms of how to carry out the market research we are probably going to talk to potential customers, although as I mentioned whatever the results are it would not have a huge impact on our strategy.
ReplyDeleteLook forward to hearing from you.