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10.4: Understand Your Industry

  • Page ID
    4043
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    Learning Objective

    1. Explain how to research an industry.

    Before you invest a lot of time and money to develop a new product, you need to understand the industry in which it’s going to be sold. As inventor of the PowerSki Jetboard, Bob Montgomery had the advantage of being quite familiar with the industry that he proposed to enter. With more than twenty years’ experience in the water-sports and personal-watercraft industry, he felt at home in this business environment. He knew who his potential customers were, and he knew who his competitors were. He had experience in marketing similar products, and he was familiar with industry regulations.

    Most people don’t have the same head start as Montgomery. So, how does the average would-be businessperson learn about an industry? What should you want to know about it? Let’s tackle the first question first.


    10.4: Understand Your Industry is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.