Chapter 3

Who will buy?

By now you have probably narrowed down your shortlist of ideas. You may know which market you want to enter; you may have got your eye on a product that you think has potential.

Your potential product may have a vast market, a tiny market or somewhere in between. You can reduce your risk of misjudgement by trying to work out where it falls in the spectrum of demand. There is a philosophy, which many technology businesses adopt, that you can come up with a first stab at a product, known as a ‘beta’ version; see if anyone wants to buy it and gradually refine and polish in an iterative process until you have a finished product in a clear marketplace with good demand. That’s always possible, but you can still reduce your ...

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