Entrepreneurship can be Thought
You always hear
people say entrepreneurship is that eureka moment when you have an idea and
bam.... you are down at your basement (or wherever you chose) creating that
unique product that would lead to the million dollar business, or like me have
heard that entrepreneurship is an experience and you cannot actually have a
road map before you get into that right (Wrong). Now don't get me wrong I
believe action is one of the main means through which you can get feedback. so
before you go out and spend some money and most importantly your time before
realizing that your product or service is not economically viable or is in a
very competitive market and you would eventually be choked out by the
incumbents in that segment sooner or later, what if you have the "Entrepreneurial
Tools" to take you down that road that allows you assess your start up
effectively and efficiently in the most economical way. I am going to give you
three fundamental tools that will allow you grow your business, you all know
the 80/20 rule 80% of
startups fail and only 20% succeed i would love to put you among the 20 but
let’s face it, we would want to change that rule if we could as a matter of
fact we can if you follow these steps.
Market Segmentation
Market
segmentation is a marketing strategy that involves dividing a broad
target market into subsets of consumers who have common needs and
priorities, and then designing and implementing strategies to target them. This
strategy is applied by most large corporations like Apple and Microsoft but it
is most suited for start-ups. A customized expression for market segmentation
would then be segmenting your market to have homogeneous customers who are
willing and have the economic power to buy your product a product can either be
goods or services, so as an entrepreneur you would want to find that niche
where your solution aligns with the solution of your customers. Reelfruit
offers healthy snacks by extending the shelf life of fruits with their range of
dried mangoes and pineapples they target the middle and upper class
society and among them those that are health conscious. This company found its
niche segmented its market and i believe that is what is giving them success in
this industry. They segmented their market to those people who want to find
ways of improving their health (those gents and ladies wanting to be in shape)
are working or have their own businesses and between the 20-40 yrs. of age
though they sell their product through supermarkets and other distributors, it
is very important that they segmented their market to know the actual customers
and end users which is another tool I will explain to you better, instead of
creating a product that would not be economically viable.
Beach Head Market
.Remember the colonial nations of
old, yep you do when they plan to colonize a territory they first make camp and
secure the coast before exploring the hinterlands. You get the idea now, as a
startup the first mistake most people make is analyzing the whole market and
find they do not actually know which market to start with. In business,
particularly startups, the beachhead strategy is about focusing your resources
on one key area, usually a smaller market segment or product category, and
winning that market first, even dominating that market, before moving into
larger markets, this is the market where your customers are and can lead to
other markets with potential customers. continuing with Reelfruit they
identified their beach head market by targeting supermarkets and pharmacies
where they can easily have access to their clients, they could have started
with vending machines and putting them in big offices but that would not meet
their segmented market and not solve their needs so by supplying through
supermarkets and pharmacies they not only reached the healthy conscious middle
class individuals but those that would just love a snack or a family going out
for picnic of course the health aspect comes as a bonus. This chosen market has
given them credibility and now they are going into other market segments
supplying snacks for airlines. So as a business “geek” or an entrepreneur,
start choosing your beach head market fast that will propel you to success.
End user
The individual (a real person!) who will use
your product. The end user is usually a member of the household or organization
that is your customer. Analyzing your end user will fall under the decision
making unit. Which is explained in detail below
Decision Making Unit: The individual(s) who decide whether the customer will buy your
Product, consisting of:
·
Advocate: The person who wants the customer to purchase the product; often
the end user.
·
Primary
Economic Buyer: The person with the authority to
spend money to purchase the product. Sometimes, the end user.
·
Influencers,
Veto Power, purchasing department, etc.: People who
have sway or direct control over the decisions of the Primary Economic Buyer.
Your focus will be on the end user,
because if the end user does not want your product, you will be unable to sell
the product to the customer. In this step, you will build a profile of the end
user that is specific enough to use for calculating the Total Addressable
Market size of your beachhead market. Later on, you will identify one end user
who fits the End User Profile to serve as your Persona.
While you could calculate the size
of the beachhead market now, you will find that even in your narrow beachhead,
the end users are not all alike. You will first need to narrow further by
choosing a specific demographic of end users.
Potential Characteristics to Include in Your End User Profile
·
Gender
·
Age
range
·
Income
range
·
Geographic
location
·
What
do they fear most?
·
Who
is their hero?
·
Where
do they go for vacation? For dinner? Before work?
·
What
newspapers do they read? Websites? What TV shows do they watch?
·
What
is the general reason they are buying this product? Savings? Image? Peer
pressure?
·
What
makes them special and identifiable?
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