Is your start-up future-proofed?

This week I am doing a seven part series on how consumer trends insight and our analysis of the innovation economy can help those investing in start-ups or high growth companies. I will be covering the particular needs of newborn start-ups, early angel investor, early stage VC, late stage VC, hedge fund, private fund manager and private equity banker. Wow, that’s a mouth full!

Each stage of the start-up food chain has different needs and different goals, but overarchingly, the goal of everybody in the start-up/investment space is to anticipate and judge the marketplace better than others for an edge in investment returns.

If you are a start-up you want to be the first to tap into a new consumer need, or to edge out the competition by stretching the innovation space.

If you are an investor you want to find the best deals, ideally before others for the maximum investment rates — this holds true for both private and public investment.

Everyone in the innovation economy is kitting themselves with any and all tools to anticipate, predict and quantify the future. But until crystal balls become a reality, consumer trends are one of the best ways to understand and leverage the forces of the future.

Part 1: I am a start-up

Whether you are a coder in a small studio apartment, or coding in the illustrious hallways of a top incubator, start-ups face the same challenge: to revolutionize industries for consumer lives yet to come. As a start-up you are building new possibilities, even changing the foundations upon which traditional industries are built. You welcome disruption, the bigger the better.

How can consumer research quantify consumer demand in economies that don’t exist yet or meet consumer needs that are yet to materialize? If you are asking those questions, you are right to be dubious in the face of things. When Steve Jobs went to create the iPad, he couldn’t ask consumers if they were interested in an interactive screen. Instead he intuited the consumer need for access to the internet that was more mobile, more interactive, more intuitive and more entertaining. He used new software and hardware to revolutionize the consumer tech landscape and tap into latent consumer needs.

Whether you are a pre-seed or series D start-up, it is essential to check in with the consumer needs. Consumer trends insight can help you immediately:

1) Highlight the trends in your sector and the wider consumer shifts to make sure your marketplace offer is crystallized

2) Leverage factors driving consumer behavior to direct pivots or product/service tweaks

3) Figure out your prime target, wider and potential target based on the consumer needs you aim to meet

4) Strategise which markets to grow into (either state by state or different countries and/or continents)

5) Allow you to constantly evolve your product/service to keep up with the pace of consumer and innovation development.

Want to find out more about what consumer trends your start-up is meeting? Step into the innovation economy and explore nVest Venture’s sector and nano-sector reports.

Are you an investor? Check out tomorrow’s blog for how angel investors can use consumer trends to identify the best investments.