EPQ

Project Introduction

An entrepreneurial leader, as I define it, is someone who can identify opportunities, take initiative, make a difference, and is ready to embrace risks for their ventures...

Rocket Pitch

Customer Discovery Plan

One member of your team will upload the graded assignment here.

To develop a strong business or social impact project, you need to be able to identify the needs of your prospects and/or customers. As a result of completing the customer discovery assignment, you should be able to clearly describe the demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics of your target audience(s) as much as possible. Please note that your decision-makers and/or purchasers may be a subgroup from the user profile and/or a totally different group. That means that the person buying the product is not the same person who will use it. An easy example is dog biscuits. The users are dogs but, much to their dismay, very few dogs have a budget to purchase their own biscuits, therefore the decision-maker is the dog's owner.

Your Customer Discovery Plan (including your research questions) is due on Wed, July 13 and the findings for this assignment are due during the Feasibility Presentation module. Remember to include in your plan WHO you will be researching, HOW you will find them, and WHEN you will be completing your research (timeline).

This assignment asks you to create a brief written survey or script for a focus group or one-on-one interviews that you can deploy as follows:

Survey: 100 prospective customers (minimum goal of 50)
One-on-one Interviews: 10 – 15 prospective customers
Focus Group: 10 – 15 prospective customers
Ethnography: 10 – 15 prospective customers observed

This is a team assignment so the work should be divided amongst the team members. For example, if there are four members in your team and you decide to launch a survey, then you might ask each team member to 'recruit' 25 individuals to complete the survey, for a total of 100 responses for your team.

To begin this assignment, you will create a survey or interview script. Ideally, this should be approximately 7 total questions (including 1 to 2 demographic questions). These will be reviewed by your peers and you will give feedback to each other. In addition, your teacher will provide you with feedback before you conduct your research.

What Questions Do You Need to Address?

Below are examples of information that you need to understand before moving forward with your idea. You may not be able to answer all of these questions or you might identify others that are more valuable to you. This is simply a starter collection of information gathering ideas:

What’s most important to your customers in solving the problem you are addressing?
Compared to what your competition offers, what makes your products or services unique or more valuable to your customers?
What are the most common needs that your customers share?
What are the top problems that you solve for your customers?
What opportunities are you creating for your customers when they purchase your products or services?
What are your customers’ decision-making processes (meaning, what issues do they consider before they purchase products or services from you or from a competitor)?
Why do your customers value your products and/or services?
How will your customers find out about your products and/or services?
Does price play a role in your customers’ decision to purchase products or services from you?

How Do You Begin to Discover The Answers?

You need to ask the right questions to reveal:

Pain points/challenges. Except in the healthcare industry, “customer pain” does not refer to a true physical pain, but refers instead to a problem or challenge that must be fixed. What pain can you resolve for your customers?
Opportunities. Does your product open doors for your customers or offer them the ability to further grow their businesses? Are you creating an opportunity for them to improve their lives? What are you helping them do better?
Location. Will your business or products be located in a place that’s convenient for your customers or makes sense for their lifestyle? If your customers can’t find you, whether you’re on the street or only on the Internet, then it doesn’t matter how targeted your products and services are.
Behavior and decision-making processes. What behaviors or habits influence your customers’ purchasing process? Do your customers need specific information before they make a decision? Do they conduct a lot of research before they purchase your product, or is your product an impulse purchase? Is timing a factor? Who is involved in the purchase decision?
Spending patterns. Do certain times of year influence your customers’ spending patterns? Does a lifestyle change, such as getting married or having a baby, influence their decision?
Price sensitivity. How much does price influence your customers’ decisions? How closely is their perception of the value of your product linked to the price? You can price too high or too low, so you need to be careful in answering this question.

Demographics

These are factual- (versus opinion-) driven data points. Depending on your customer base, you might need to know only a few, or perhaps you need to learn more than we have included in this list. For example, are your customers mothers with a college degree, aged 35–50 who live in the United States, or are they 15-year-old high school students who live in Costa Rica? Below are some examples of demographic data you might want to collect. DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS SHOULD BE AT THE END OF THE SURVEY (AIM FOR 3 - 5 DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS)

Age (range)
Gender identification
Family status (single, married, etc.)
Ethnic Identity
Education
Location—Where are your customers located, and how do they find you?
Businesses (industry, title, company size, previous products purchased)

Sample Survey Questions

What is your gender?
- Female
- Male
What is your age?
- Under 18
- 18-24
- 25-39
- 40-50
- 50+
Do you buy second-hand books?
- Yes
- No
What types of books are you interested in? (multiple choice is available)
- Literature
- History
- Science
- Psychology
- Biography
- Art
- Thriller
- Reference book
- Other (please specify)
Have you ever exchanged books?
- Yes
- No
What motivates you to exchange books? (multiple choice is available)
- To save money
- To connect with other readers
- To clean up your books
- Others (please specify)
Where do you usually get your books from?
- Bookstores
- Online stores
- Libraries
- Friends or family
- Book fairs
- Other (please specify)
How do you prefer to read books?
- Printed books
- E-books
- Audiobooks
- No preference

Prototype

Customer Discovery Plan for Second-Hand Book Exchange Platform

Value Proposition:

This online second-hand bookstore platform is established to provide people with access to books across various categories at low prices. By optimizing resources and facilitating book exchanges, we will circulate books through online bookstores and distribute them to rural school areas in China. Our group aims to contribute to quality education by operating a mature second-hand bookstore website and connecting with communities trapped in poverty in China.

Target Audience:

Our primary target audience includes individuals who are willing to buy and exchange second-hand books, especially those who have tight budgets. This encompasses a diverse group in terms of age, gender, educational background, and location. The decision-makers and users might overlap, as book buyers are often also the end users. However, we should also consider that some users may be parents or guardians buying books for children.

Further Recommendations:

Our team members considered several methods that would be more effective for our platform. The first is to build partnerships with schools, libraries, and NGOs to increase book donations and reach a wider audience. The second is to increase social media activity and use social media to raise awareness about your platform and its mission. Share success stories and impact metrics to attract more users and donors.