Research Guide

Great technical ideas are often a good start, but successful business plans include sections on marketing and financials based on additional research. There are many resources available to help write business plans and to research strategies, industry trends, customer needs and potential competitors.

In order to be sure your product or service targets the needs of your customers you will need to be familiar with how these people behave. In order to construct convincing sales and revenue forecasts you must understand competing firms.

When conducting market research, remember to take time to talk with actual potential customers. Many times the fastest way to get the information you need is simply to ask the people who know. You can contact potential customers, suppliers, and competitors directly through interviews or surveys; this is often the most useful, efficient, and credible method. To identify contacts, use the Yellow Pages or the relevant industry directories (available at many libraries).

The resources below may help to get you started:

• Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore
• Inside the Tornado, Geoffrey Moore
• Marketing High Technology: An Insider's View, Bill Davidow
• Relationship Marketing: Successful Strategies for the Age of the Customer, Regis McKenna
• Business Plans for Dummies, Paul Tiffany and Steven Peterson
• Only the Paranoid Survive, Andy Grove
• Hypercompetitive Rivalries, Richard D'Aveni and Robert Gunther
• The Prize, Daniel Yergia
• Start-Up: A Silicon Valley Adventure, Jerry Kaplan
• Pratt's Guide to Venture Capital Sources, Ted Weissberg, ed.
• The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson
• The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen
• Enterprise and Venture Capital, Chris Golis

Online Resources

• American NVCA http://www.nvca.org/



• British VCA http://www.bvca.co.uk/



• Australian VCA http://www.avcal.com.au/