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What Are Market Strategies?

What are the best strategies for finding the pain points of a market in another country?

  • We bootstrapped and formed a company recently, currently doing project for different clients. But now we want to uncover some "Real Problems" so that solving those can actually deliver value to the clients We are based in subcontinent, what strategies can we employ to uncover  these real pains across while it may not be possible to meet  people from the sector in person over coffee /lunch or to work in the sector for a couple of years as pointed out in a similar question.

  • Answer:

    You will need to get creative with uncovering these pain points. Consider the traditional routes for pain points, but also unconventional ones that show you the personality and challenges that people face. Some of the traditional ways include: Scouring social media: Social Media platforms like Twitter and Facebook can be very useful in uncovering local pain points. #yourcountry: A downside of social media, it best captures moments as they happen, so if you missed them it's hard to recover and find things from the past Look for white papers and journal articles. With Adobe PDFs you can find scholarly articles online from practically any culture (I just read a white paper on male buying habits out of Singapore). They tend to be very detailed Look at other places online: Look for forums or blogs that depict pain points For some unconventional ways, consider: Local Newspapers. If you targeting pain points check out the local newspapers and "Letters to the Editor" section. You can also check their archives. A number of newspaper agencies have started to digitize their archives. Visit the area and set-up interviews with people directly affected by your market. Nothing beats being there and being a sponge. Do research online to find out who are some major players that could qualify for your target market, reach out and schedule meetings Every country is so different and within a country, the variety of subcultures present a whole other set of issues. The most important thing is to be immersed in your culture. You may need to either find someone who has been immersed or just consider moving there temporarily. You will do your best work when you have either direct or directly transferable experience. Best of luck.

Matthew Miller at Quora Visit the source

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Other answers

You can look at both online and offline strategies. Online, you can get into local Facebook, LinkedIn or Meetup groups, connect with the locals there and try to get them to talk to you though I suspect this might be challenging: you need to have a convincing pitch and buy-in from the people you cold-contact to have them spend time and effort to chat with you Offline, go to internship and part-time job portals (disclaimer: I started an internship portal http://www.glints.com) to bring on extra hands on deck for a short period of time and have them do surveys, customer interviews and market research. Offline beats online anytime in my opinion

Qin En Looi

There are really good answers on this page already. You can and should do those. My own advice would be to remote hire someone whose job it is to do this - not as an intern, but full-time. You might as well have someone on board whose job it is to check usability, and it's completely legitimate to hire a UX designer. Here, you would be looking for cultural fit in the other country as well as basic UX stuff.

Caroline Luu

Thanks for the A2A.  I'll take a different tack from the other very good answers already provided.  There is a reason investors look of for "domain expertise".  Beyond knowledge of the pain point, domain expertise includes insight into the contributing factors as well as any previous attempts at solutions. So the search for a domain expert in the country of interest could also be a approach.  This person can then become the thought leader/champion of your eventual solution. Finding the domain expert would also rely on social media. In this case I'd pick a vertical/application and look for message boards, LinkedIn or Facebook groups where application specific issues are discussed and start to follow top contributors. You could lurk for a while and maybe come up with some questions of your own to ask, once you've followed the threads for a while.  Then reach out to a few of these top contributors and ask for their top pain points.

Michael Bittle

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