Survey says… targeted market research is crucial to business development

Written by: Stephanie Soares, Founder Cape Cod Bike Fit

Alex Trebek and Steve Harvey have nothing on Shelley Cardoos when it comes to asking questions. Shelley took the lead discussing “Crafting Awesome Surveys” with the EforAll Cape Cod cohort for a very inquisitive evening. Anyone can ask a question, the tricky part is refining it and gathering useful information.

As an early stage entrepreneur, you assume a lot about your customer segment. But how do you truly know unless you ask? Surveying is an important component of the “measure, learn, build” cycle of the Lean Startup. It allows for a customer’s wants and needs to be strongly correlated to a product or service’s benefits, features and experience. This crucial link essentially creates a solid value proposition, one of the nine blocks of the Business Model Canvas. The Business Model Canvas (BMC), acts like a golf caddy for entrepreneurs, holds important information and tools, keeps everything organized, adjusts as needed and guides in the decision making process.

One of the main objectives of surveying is to confirm the “pain” your business is solving for the customer. Even though all of the EforAll Cape Cod cohort’s businesses are different and no two are in the same phase of development, we can all benefit from the information we will gather with our surveys. By using good knowledge of your customer, you can focus on “trust, respect, integrity” which Nicole Perullo of Nolia Mabel Skin Care aims to achieve with every customer. With the guidance of Shelley and support of peers, our task is now to test our assumptions through surveys so we can tackle the next block of our Business Model Canvas.