CB Insights, a big data company that provides predictive intelligence on tech, compiled a list of reasons why startups fail. By analyzing 101 startup failure post-mortems, they came up with top 20 reasons that drive the demise of startups. Their findings show that the top reason for failure in 42% of the cases is that there is no market need for the product/service that the startups have built.

Behind the poor product-market fit or the lack of market for the product is most likely the failure to understand the target market and the ideal customer. In the eagerness to get the product out and raise funds, the crucial homework of doing market research is typically overlooked or downright skipped. Thus it would be wise if, before you spend inordinate amounts of time, energy and money on product launch, you make sure your startup’s product/service has a market for it.

Here’s part 1 of our market research and customer discovery resources for your startup series.

AYTM

AYTM is short for Ask Your Target Market, a DIY market research platform that provides survey tools and the audience to take your survey. You begin by choosing your source of panelists (either a ListSurvey or PanelSurvey) and defining your target audience. You then write a survey which can include advanced research tests, images, and video. You get to see the results immediately and understand the data with AYTM’s powerful analytic tools.

The platform allows you to build your own list of people to survey or use AYTM’s PanelSurvey where you can access over 25 million respondents in 24 countries. Recently this year, AYTM is recognized in GRIT’s Top 50 Most Innovative Companies.

Validately

What if you can test a feature in your product before you invest time in developing it? Validately does exactly that. An end-to-end platform built for user research, Validately makes it easy to conduct user research for product development. It enables you to do user testing of a prototype or feature before coding it.

You can run tests, listen to and watch users make their way in your website or app to validate the demand and usability of your product. You can also recruit product-specific testers and analyze the recorded videos by using funnel reports, heat maps, and response charts built into the platform.

Proved

Got a fresh idea for a startup? Proved.co helps you validate that with survey data and more. Targeted for startups, small business owners, and digital marketers, Proved.co connects you to your potential customers and uses their feedback to benchmark your startup ideas against thousands of other competitors.

Using the service, you can also get customer feedback from real customers, as well as pre-test and fine-tune your marketing with survey data. Plans range from $149 per test with 25 respondents for the Starter and goes up to $499 per test with 100 respondents for the Pro version.

GutCheck

An on-demand market research service, GutCheck uses an agile research approach combining full-service experts, with iterative methodologies, and tech-enabled automation. As an alternative to in-person panels that are labor-intensive and expensive to set up, GutCheck enables you to get actionable feedback in days instead of weeks. The speedy, high quality yet low-cost market research solution that the platform offers is ideal for startups that need to get quick customer feedback at tight budgets and short timelines.

userinput.io

userinput.io is an on-demand service that gets you valuable user feedback on your website, app, or business idea. What differentiates userinput.io is that it focuses on improving conversion rates. You begin by submitting your website / app / idea, choose a demographic to get specific feedback, and then review the feedback as soon as they come in, using it to improve or pivot.

The service allows you to run targeted surveys and learn what’s working or not with your startup app or idea. Starting at $39 a pop with 12 to 48 hours turnaround time, userinput.io lets you get user feedback easily and quickly.

Survicate

Like userinput.io, Survicate is a customer feedback platform for SMBs but with all-in-one capabilities that you can do a lot more with. With its full-service features you can get targeted website or mobile app surveys, user-initiated feedback widgets, one-click email surveys, NPS (Net Promoter Score) email surveys, and questionnaires.

Survicate also allows integrations with Google Analytics, surveys from HubSpot, Pardot, MailChimp, Marketo, and Intercom, with add-ons such as the feedback tab and A/B testing. It offers a 15-day trial with the Professional plan, while the Business plan starts at $69 per month.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our market research resources series! 

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