Market Research and Targeting Conducting market research was

Market Research and Targeting: Conducting market research was essential in order for us to develop the game further and to gauge the reaction from our potential customers. • Two short surveys were created, one for each of our target markets - students and business owners. • By creating surveys, we were able to store the data we collected on Microsoft Excel and create charts. The charts allowed us to easily analyse the results and to essentially see the feasibility of our product. • To gather feedback, an email with the Google Forms survey link was sent out to fellow students and peers. An email with the second survey was sent out to a smaller number of business owners. • Our main aim was to find out who will use and benefit from ‘Risky Business’ and how much would they be willing to pay. (1) Are you interested in starting your own business in the future? 12 ‘Risky Business’ is a new simulation game in which the user is placed in a variety of different business scenarios, all of which involve risk, and must choose from a list of 4 courses of action. Each course of action is weighted with a probability of success. Background: • No. of people 6 4 2 0 Maybe No Yes Are you aware of an app which would allow you to test and improve your decision-making skills for business situations involving risks? (2) No. of people 30 • Students attitudes to, and experience with (3) Would you be interested in an risk are important for us to see what type app like this? of students ‘Risky Business’ is best suited 25 to and who exactly we need to be targeting. • The originality of ‘Risky Business’ is 20 important in order to catch peoples interest 15 so the two questions shown provided us 10 with great insight into the potential off our product. (2) (3) 5 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 No Maybe Yes (4) How much would you pay for this app? Target Market: • • • Our game is aimed at college students who have aspirations of owning their own business in the future. It will help them develop practical tools for assessing the best course of action in a given scenario and help improve their confidence in decision-making. It will teach them that mistakes should not be considered failures but learning experiences. A secondary market available for possible expansion into would be businesses who are looking to delegate authority to lower level managers and employees but may lack trust in their decision-making abilities. No. of people • 10 8 6 4 2 0 1€ + 1 -50 cents Price range How confident would you be in allocating decision-making autonomy to your employees? 6 5 4 1 2 3 4 5 % Confidence (x 10) 6 7 8 What Risky Business aims to do is to erase all doubt and to ensure that employees are fully skilled and informed when it comes to making decisions that involve risk. • 100% of businesses asked had not heard of a training programme which allows them to test and improve their employees decisionmaking skills for situations involving risks. This informed us that there is space in the market for ‘Risky Business’. 4, 5 4 4 2 How much would you pay for this programme? 3 2, 5 3, 5 3 3, 5 1, 5 1 1 1 0, 5 0 0 Maybe Yes The positive response to this question confirmed to us that although there is space in the market for the game, there is also interest, with no one answering ‘no’ to the question posed. • The main question that we wanted answered from this survey was; would students be interested in an app like this. • To our delight, 19 said they would be interested and 4 said maybe. They also reported that there is a gap in the market for such an application as only 3 were aware of such an app, with 24 having no knowledge of any apps like this. • This accompanied with the average confidence of students being 5, with more research and development being put into our application, it can turn out to be successful in the market. Company App Prices: • The version of the application that is intended to aid established businesses with the decision making of their employees brought in a smaller sample size of data, but it still was very helpful to us. • The results showed that 100% of businesses were not familiar of an application which offered them such a service, with more than half being interested in such an application. • Businesses have access to more funds and so said that they were willing to spend an upwards of $10 for such an application. • The most important question we posed was how confident employers were with allocating decision- making to employees on a scale of 1 -8, and the average came out to be 5, which shows that while they do trust them, employees do pose some doubt when it comes to decision-making. 2 2 2 Aim and results of survey: 2 • This graph clearly shows that although the average person asked is over 50% confident in allocating decision-making authority, none of them were over 70% confident. Would you be interested in a programme like this? • The data we collected from the survey gave us valuable information on our shortcomings with ‘Risky Business’ and gave us insight into what we need to work on for it to be practical in the business environment. • It was evident from the data that one of our largest problems with the applicability of it would be that the app would not be very useful for students that plan to enter a field where it is uncommon for you to raise your own finance, for example students in science where funding is given by universities and governments. • In order to be able to satisfy outliers such as this, our app has to be further developed in the future to suit the large audiences by offering more choices. • An idea on how outliers like the science and computer applications students might use this app would be by maybe offering levels where rather than asking them to choose a source of finance, we could ask them how to allocate finance that was given to them into different areas of the project or firm. 3 1 • Conclusion: • One of the problems we came in knowing we were going to encounter regards the price of the application. • While it would not be worth our time making it free, we needed to find a price where the application was affordable to the consumer and we would be satisfied with the profit. • This is especially an issue as most of our data consisted of students, individuals who are known to be tight on funds. • From our data, we have agreed that it should be priced between € 1 and € 1. 50, a profit my colleagues and I were satisfied with. • There was a sizable sample that wanted the app for free, and after discussing this with my group members, a free version of the app could be achievable with the integration of advertisements and limited scenarios, with these becoming removed and unlocked with a full payment. 51 cents - 1€ • To see the feasibility of the product for businesses, we gathered information from businesses ranging from small to medium sized. • Our aim was to find out do business owners have confidence in their subordinates to take control and make decisions when the occasion arises 17308046 17343596 17309261 17477562 Student App Prices: Entrepreneur and Business Owners Survey Results No. of people • The look and feel of the game will be kept simple for the user. • The timer will be displayed at the bottom of the screen and points will be displayed at the top. • The list of options will be displayed vertically in between these. • The background of the game will show different work environments, which will change as the player progresses through the game e. g. it may start off as a small oneperson office and eventually finish in a large boardroom. • Along the left-hand side of the screen will be the players’ avatar, which they can customise and unlock accessories for. Yes 0 0 Layout and Design: No • The price of our product must be student friendly and so, it is vital that we listen to and take into consideration what price the students surveyed would pay. • We need to make sure the game is affordable enough for students but that it will also be worth making profit wise. NO. OF PEOPLE • • 8 People • If the player is successful, they gain points. If they are unsuccessful, they lose a life. The number of points a player receives is dependent on the speed at which they answered. Each player has 3 lives. High scores are recorded, and XP is earned from answering questions. As players gain XP the probability of success for their courses of action increase. 10 No. of People • • It was important for us that both business and non-business students took part in the survey as this allowed us to see how broad our student market could be. • An interest in starting a business in the future is the main attraction students would have to ‘Risky Business’, so we asked the following question. (1) Aaron Cahill Emma Duff Aleska Milosavljevic Sophie Burke David Michael Dillon 10 -15€ + PRICE 5 -10€ The question above was very important as part of our research because different pricing strategies must be considered thoroughly and the information given above will help us to choose the correct one. In conclusion, an application that helped students with finance received a positive response from the sample size, while it needs to be further expanded before the full release, we are very satisfied with the progress we made in the 2 semesters. However, in order to make this something that is actively used by entrepreneurs, it needs more research and development to be put into it. This is the feedback we received from students as it lacks content in its current state.