Market research idea

[CSharpwise]

I have an idea for a web app, I think it will take a few months of effort to make it so before I do I'd like to get a better idea of whether or not its worth that investment of time.

How would you research an idea to make a better decision if its worth investing time in?

 

[Pressure Hosting]

Friends and family! Always start with them, ask them is they would use the app/find it useful. Also try setting up a survey online, and get people to fill it in. Obviously I understand why you wouldn't want to post details on here off your idea, but you will need to tell reviewers. Also have you considered how you are going to make money from this app? I am not sure what it is, however most apps make money either from: 1. Selling the app (not many people buy apps though, these days), 2. advertising. So make sure you consider the profitability. How you going to create it? Yourself or hire it out, because app development (depending on complexity) can be expensive!

Hope this helps!
Ross

 

[CSharpwise]

Friends and family! Always start with them, ask them is they would use the app/find it useful. Also try setting up a survey online, and get people to fill it in. Obviously I understand why you wouldn't want to post details on here off your idea, but you will need to tell reviewers. Also have you considered how you are going to make money from this app? I am not sure what it is, however most apps make money either from: 1. Selling the app (not many people buy apps though, these days), 2. advertising. So make sure you consider the profitability. How you going to create it? Yourself or hire it out, because app development (depending on complexity) can be expensive!

Hope this helps!
Ross

Thanks! Where would you conduct an online survey?

The idea is to create an online app that can generate book covers for the mass of self publishing authors. It will offer a suitable template and images, fonts etc that can easily be slotted together. The aim is that a writer with no artistic capability can create a reasonably good looking cover, and make it as simple as making a weebly webpage.

I will make the app myself so it runs in any browser, I could build it in a month or two, with an additional month or two for testing. Then I have to acquire some royalty free art that works for book covers.

Of course there are already software out there that does this however I believe that they are overpriced, some costing £10/month or £100 one off. I don't think self publishing authors want to spend that money or the time learning the software.

I had a few ideas for how to monetise it. One is simply charge a flat fee per cover download. e.g £0.99 per download. Other idea is to make it free, create a forum and market some other products alongside it.

 

[GDC71]

Sounds like a great idea to be fair. My only thought is it seems a very niche market - I'm sure there are more self publishing online authors now than ever before but do you have any ideas of numbers? As long as the numbers of potential customers is high then it has to be worth a punt. If I were an author I wouldn't pay £100 one off nor £10 a month because, as far as I see, online books don't need a cover but if your app did it for 99p I'd almost certainly create one.

Good luck!

 

[Pressure Hosting]

Thanks! Where would you conduct an online survey?

SurveyMonkey .com is probably the most well known!

 

[CSharpwise]

SurveyMonkey .com is probably the most well known!

Any advice on creating effective online surveys?

Including how to distribute them etc. I see there a service called mailchimp that works with survey monkey.

 

[Web Retailer]

I'd try talking to people (potential users) face-to-face. Friends and family may not be familiar with the subject and be wary of offending you. An online survey may not get many responses and does not allow nuanced discussion.

Are there meetups or other groups for authors you could attend to sound them out?

By the way, I have self-published, and £100 for a professional cover design is nothing compared to the effort of writing a (half decent) book!

 

[CSharpwise]

I'd try talking to people (potential users) face-to-face. Friends and family may not be familiar with the subject and be wary of offending you. An online survey may not get many responses and does not allow nuanced discussion.

Are there meetups or other groups for authors you could attend to sound them out?

By the way, I have self-published, and £100 for a professional cover design is nothing compared to the effort of writing a (half decent) book!

For a half decent book £100 is very little, I agree. I'm not targeting professional or even semi-professional authors. The market I'm targeting are "bedroom" authors who write 10,000 word novellas, etc. They probably are in the stage of their career where they still have a lot to learn about the craft of writing and in all honesty most people would not want to read their books. So, having a decent book cover can:

• help attract interest
• give a sense of accomplishment and closure
• a solid way to present to other authors on forums and blogs

Given my market, I guess posting in some writers forums would be a good place to start getting some feedback. I'm not sure how I could get an indication of market size, however.