Class #2: Markets and Marketing

Lesson 2: Monday, February 2

"Cherchez le creneau!"

Niche: "a habitat supplying the factors necessary for the existence of an organism or species"

In the study of any specific ecology, a successful species is one that grows and thrives in direct harmony with its surroundings. When the ecology changes, species must adapt or die. Using our interdisciplinary reasoning skills, we will apply the role of a changing environment on speciation and draw conclusions on how to create a successful business in our changing economy.

Readings: Crossing the Chasm, Author's note and preface to the revised edition pp. i -- xix; Part 1: Discovering the Chasm pp. 3 - 59, selected readings from IPO filings of Under Armour and Starbucks

"If you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door." If you learn nothing else in this course you will learn that this statement is wrong.

Class Discussion: Technology Adoption Life Cycle: terms and implications. Psychographic descriptions and behavior of the iconic customers. Finding the target market.

Markets are everything: what is your target market? How big is this market? What is the growth rate of your market? How does your market behave?

These are essential first questions to ask for any potential new business. Fortunately, finding the answers is easier than ever with specific internet data sources at your fingertips. Classwork will go over how to determine and size target markets, internet web sites will be provided to complete the homework. Sources discussed in the class will be US Government online sources (e.g. http://www.census.gov/), "Mash Up Sites" http://www.policymap.com/, http://www.trulia.com, Securities and Exchange Commission (http://www.sec.gov), Macro economic indicators http://www.conference-board.org/

Other resources include: http://www.surveymonkey.com/, http://www.work.com/, http://www.entrepreneurship.org/, http://www.censusscope.org/, http://www.fedstats.gov/, http://www.bplans.com/, http://entrepreneurs.about.com/

Discuss online marketing costs and theory using Google Adwords and similar online marketing tools. Discuss the "Rules of Powerpoint".

Assignment #2: Choose a market you believe is the target for a product you are interested in launching. Research this market and come up with 5 important characteristics based on facts sourced through online data sources. Place these into a powerpoint slide in bullet point form, email this slide to the professor at least 48 hours prior to next class and be prepared to discuss and defend in class. Just as we use the "scientific method" in developing a hypothesis and then test it empirically, we will test each proposed target market through fact based observations and deduction.