Managing E-business

Most people who are just starting out in creating an online business make the mistake of looking for a product first, and a market second.

To boost your chances of success, start with a market.  The trick is to find a group of people who are searching for a solution to a problem but not finding many results.  They must be looking for a solution to a problem in a topic area that you know about or you are interested in learning about.  The internet makes this kind of market research easy.

1.           Visit online forums to see what questions people ask and what problems they are trying to solve.

2.           Do keyword research to find keywords that a lot of people are searching, but for which not many sites are competing.

3.           Check out your potential competitors by visiting their sites and taking note of what they are doing to fill the demand.  Then you can use what you have learned and create a product for a market that already exists – and do it better than the competition!

 The deliverable for this assignment will be 1 – 2 pages long (plus title page and appendices) 

The main deliverable will be an executive summary of what your research has found.  The details of your research will be supplied in the appendices.  The rubric provides details on what is expected.

Remember: you are developing an information based business.  No product should be required to make your business financially successful.