Tell you from the market dimension: What should you sell when starting a business?

In the Internet, no matter what project we need to do, we must consider the market. This article mainly talks about how to find inspiration from the dimension of "market" to cut into the category, and find out what to sell for entrepreneurship from the market. I hope it will inspire you.

No matter what kind of project you want to do on the Internet, you just have to get the following things in place: market, product and channel. It's like a chair. If any leg is missing, you can't stand up.

Market: The market includes the needs of industries, categories and customer groups. You have to understand what customers want and what they are thinking. After all, where there is demand, there is a market.

Product: It is the solution you provide for "customer needs". Even if you help the customer clean his house, as long as the customer has this need, you can charge money. So products are divided into physical products and virtual products, and of course services.

Channel: including supply channel, sales channel, and drainage channel...

Of course, if I were to explain this in detail, there would be too many things involved. I will divide it into several articles in the future and explain every aspect of it in detail. Those who are interested can pay attention to my later articles.

Today we will first talk about how to find inspiration from the dimension of "market" and enter the category.

Since we need to look at it from the perspective of the market, we must first clarify:

1. What customers want;
2. How to find inspiration;

If you don’t even know what customers want, then whatever industry you say you want to enter or what products you want to make is just self-entertainment!

1. What do customers want?

If you want to make money, then you must first figure out "what do I want to sell"?

After all, no matter what you want to sell, it must revolve around customer needs. Because if there is no demand, it means no one needs you.

Therefore, before thinking about what you sell, it is important to first understand what your customers want!

Here, I am reminded of a saying: "When humans think, God laughs..."

Because, compared with nature, human beings are indeed too small;

However, the brain is much smaller than human desires;

Human desires are so powerful that our brains cannot control them at all.

As the old saying goes: greed is like a snake swallowing an elephant...

so:

• As long as people have the thought of "thinking", "desire" will arise;
• When people's brains generate "desire", "need" is generated;

And from your perspective:

• As long as you understand what your customers "want", you can accurately enter the market instead of self-satisfaction...
• As long as you understand what your customers "desire" is, you can constantly find products that suit their tastes...

If you want to know what customers want, you can learn from several dimensions:

• Wanting to have a certain product, a certain feeling – desire;
• There is a problem that needs to be solved - demand;
• I have encountered a problem that I cannot currently solve - a pain point;

Below, we break it down for you in detail through case studies.

1. Want to own a certain product or a certain feeling - Desire

for example:

• When you see a celebrity wearing clothes, lipstick, or bag in a movie or variety show, you want to have them too;
• When I go to a friend's house and see how beautifully decorated their home is, I want to have the same at home.
• My colleagues always go to parties or travel during holidays, and I envy them and want to go too.
• Other people's children are smart, obedient, and worry-free, but my own children need tutoring and training;
• I saw other people’s cats on TikTok and they were pretty and cute, so I wanted to raise one myself.
• Single guys have girlfriends, and they also want to have the feeling of love;
• In short, no matter what you want to have, it all comes from human desires.

Human desires are infinite, and the so-called "comparison effect", "vanity effect", "herd mentality", "loss delay" and other psychological terms behind them are all icing on the cake.

The prerequisite is that you must first understand the underlying principles of desire before you can find out why customers want such a product!

2. Encountered a problem that needs to be solved - demand

for example:

• The old air conditioner at home is very inconvenient. In summer, I come home sweating all over, and it’s so hot when I turn on the air conditioner. I need to change to a new one with smart remote control. I can turn on the air conditioner remotely on my phone on the way home, and I can feel cool when I get home. It’s very comfortable.
• Although I am very poor, I still want to have a little cultural atmosphere at home, so I need to buy some calligraphy and paintings to show my culture.
• Even if you want to start a business, open a milk tea shop, and want to find a brand to join, it is a demand;
• I want to rent a two-bedroom, one-living room house in the city center, but I don’t know where to find it. The house viewing app can meet your needs;
• If you want to have afternoon tea at noon but don’t want to go out, the food delivery app can meet your needs;
• If you don’t have time to buy groceries at work, community group buying can meet your needs;
• On a smaller scale, Mr. Wang next door said that the faucet at home was broken and he wanted to find a technician to replace it, which is also a service demand.

In short, everyone has needs at every stage of life. If you don’t pay attention to what needs your brain generates every day, how can you discover what needs your customers have?

3. Encountered a problem that cannot be solved at present - pain point

for example:

• Although electric cars are fuel-efficient, their endurance and subsequent maintenance costs are worrying. What should we do?
• What should you do if you want to satisfy your addiction of raising a pet but your family conditions do not allow it and you do not have the time to take care of it?
• I have high blood pressure in middle age and rely on medication every day to maintain stable blood pressure. What should I do if I want to completely eradicate it?
• I know smoking is bad for my health, but after so many years I want to quit but can’t. What should I do?

In short, many similar pain points are also the points where we can start our own business...

But everyone should understand and remember one thing: once the solution to the pain point is solved by a "normalized" product, the pain point will then turn into a demand, because the original "pain point" already has a universal solution, and it will become easy to obtain the solution.

This sentence is very important, I hope you can understand it.

for example:

• Before Meituan and Ele.me came out, it was difficult to deliver food, buy medicine, send flowers, etc. through food delivery.
• In the past, if you were sick at home and wanted a stranger to help you deliver medicine, it was a bit unrealistic and a pain point. But now it can be achieved through mobile apps. If you want this kind of service, you can directly place an order on the app to meet this demand.
• Similarly, in the past, it was difficult to rent a house and find one to rent, and there was a serious information gap.

What impressed me most was that in 2013, 6 real estate agents took me to see a house. I was stunned at the time. Later I learned that the real estate agents introduced the houses together. As long as the client made a deal, each real estate agent could get a commission, and it was even possible that the rent or the selling price would be inflated...

Now the rental app has solved these pain points. You can even look at pictures and videos before viewing a house, and then go to the site to confirm if it is suitable. At this time, if you have any needs related to the house, you can meet them through the platform. This has transformed from a pain point to a product that meets the needs.

Of course, for every product that has solved pain points, you can still find many more pain points. You can continue to dig out the "new pain points" behind customers from the details. After all, no solution is perfect.

Okay, after saying so much above, I believe you have a clearer understanding of the concept of “thinking” in the customer’s brain. Now, Teacher Fox will start to guide you in practical operations!

2. What products to choose

As mentioned above, what you sell must be what the customer "wants" to have, not what you want.

because:

• What customers want is called “demand”;
• What you want is called "self-happiness";

Therefore, the products you sell must be inspired by your customers’ desires, needs, and pain points!

1. Desire

I don’t know if you really understand the principles of human desire that I mentioned above. If not, I suggest you go back and read them again, because they are really important.

In fact, some of human desires are generated in an instant and will quickly go out, because desires will continue to arise and the "old" desires will be covered up by new desires!

Therefore, to find inspiration about what your customers "want" recently, you must start by following their recent "focus".

Information that can reflect most people’s recent concerns is undoubtedly the “hot search” on major platforms!

a. Taobao hot search: Open the Taobao app, click the search box, and it will appear below;

If it can become a hot search, it means that the platform data responds well, or it is officially promoted, and users will naturally become interested in it after seeing it for a long time.

b. Weibo Entertainment List

Chatting about entertainment gossip and being a bystander are the instincts of most people, just like many people who don’t take care of a lot of things at home, but only like to worry about the marriage of the aunt’s nephew’s cousin next door…

A typical example is: if you watch too many movies or TV series, you will become immersed in the drama and thus become interested in certain similar products.

For example, in the recently popular TV series "Storm":

• Same hairstyle and clothes as my sister-in-law;
• Gao Qiqiang has the same "The Art of War" and the same glasses...

Even if you are given the Art of War, you will not be able to read it, and the final outcome will be nothing but ashes;

But human nature makes us feel that “having had it” is enough, at least it serves as a placebo.

That’s right, the underlying principle of “grass planting” products is mostly the “placebo” effect, which makes you want to have the illusion that “as long as I have had it, I will feel comfortable psychologically.”

Pay more attention to entertainment gossip, popular movies, TV series, especially idol dramas, because these contents will make many people want to buy the same ones, and this is your chance.

c. A huge amount of creative hot topics

Why should you care about this?

Because the popular videos and topics in short videos indicate that they have recently attracted a lot of attention from a certain group. Therefore, even if you don’t play short videos, the topics here are worth digging into.

Moreover, you can filter by industry, popularity, and number of likes, which is very convenient.

You just need to find the corresponding industry, then dig deeper into hot topics, or even look for inspiration directly in the content of these video works, and you will get many unexpected gains.

Of course, in addition to these, you can also find inspiration in your daily life and group chats.

In short, for desire-type products, you can focus on digging out inspiration from these keywords: celebrity entertainment, movies and TV series, daily complaints, and e-commerce platforms.

2. Demand

To be honest, I don’t really want to talk about demand-type products.

There are two reasons:

a) The topic of demand products is too broad and too large

You can understand it as long as the products exist in the market, they are in demand, from daily necessities to cars and airplanes. As long as you have the need and the ability, you can buy any product and service.

The scope involved is too large, covering all walks of life, and you can conduct detailed research on the industry you are familiar with.

b) Common demand products have high competition and low profits

Ordinary goods, that is, products that everyone needs, often have very fierce competition. You sell them for 10 yuan, while others sell them for 9 yuan. It all depends on the strength of resources and funds. If ordinary people choose to start a business with such products, they will only end up becoming cannon fodder for capital.

Therefore, Teacher Fox repeatedly reminds you that it is not recommended to choose such products. Although it seems that there is a huge demand, the investment is high, the risk is high, and the profit is low.

Typical product types are: firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, clothes, shoes, hats, food and accommodation!

Of course, if you have the resources or are relatively strong, you can still do it. If you don’t have strong resources and funds, Mr. Fox advises you not to touch it.

Someone may ask here, why can’t we touch food and shelter?

Because eating seems to have high profits, but it requires a large investment and uniqueness. If you don’t believe it, look at those physical stores related to food. Most of them go bankrupt very quickly.

Even among those working in the food industry on the Internet, most of them face high competition and low profits. After all, it belongs to the industry of food, clothing, housing and transportation. I have explained this very clearly in the course.

As for accommodation, hotels, B&Bs, etc., you also need to invest. If you don’t have the resources and experience, the result will be very miserable...

In short, as long as you have strong enough resources and financial support, and you are confident, you can do anything. Otherwise, Mr. Fox suggests that you stay away from such industries.

Of course, it is impossible to generalize demand-based products, because the definition of demand-based products is very broad. There are also many high-unit-price, high-profit products, and even desire-based products. As long as everyone tries to avoid the types of industries I mentioned above, such as "food, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, tea, clothing, shoes, hats, food and accommodation", everything will be fine.

3. Pain point products

Pain point products and desire products are the types of products that I always recommend everyone to choose. After all, among my own three projects, two are desire products and one is a pain point product.

The reason is naturally that the average order value of these two types of products is relatively high, and customers are willing to pay for these products, so it is naturally easier to do it yourself.

Pain point products can find inspiration through the following channels:

a. Baidu Hot Search

Paying attention to hot news every day, if it can be on the hot search, it means that many people are paying attention to it and it can form a topic. Behind these phenomena, there must be a series of pain points hidden.

You can usually use a similar method to collect inspirations and create your own inspiration library.

For example:

b. Weibo Hot Search

The reasons and methods for following Weibo hot searches are the same as above.

Moreover, many hot events show signs of becoming popular on Weibo, so they are also worth paying attention to.

c. Tik Tok Hot List

There is no need to talk about short videos, whether they are entertainment or daily life, especially websites represented by Tik Tok.

Browse through all the popular videos and topics. Sometimes you will find more inspiration than the popular events above, because they contain a lot of life-related videos, many of which reflect the current situation and pain points of people’s lives, so they are closer to people’s lives.

d. Dangdang Books Rising List

The book rising list is a channel that is easily overlooked. I guess you thought I made a mistake when you first saw it...

Why do people pay attention to the rising book list?

First of all, you have to know that people are actually very lazy by nature. Even if they don’t need to learn, I guess few people will take the initiative to learn…

Just like you can read this long and boring article by Mr. Fox now, you are probably forced to do it. With the beating of society and the internal competition of peers, you have to learn how to find better products and industries. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be nice to watch a movie or play a few games while lying down?

So what kind of books one buys to study indicates that a certain group of people has a pain point in this area, which makes them feel pain and forces them to make up for their lack of knowledge, right?

The soaring list shows that during this period of time, a large number of people have the need to solve this problem, so they buy this kind of books to learn.

Just like before the college entrance examination every year, all kinds of related books and materials are on the soaring list, because the test paper forces me to learn more knowledge and surpass my competitors...

After opening the website, you can filter according to the categories here, find the needs of a certain group, and provide products or services.

For example, here is the "Mind Mapping Method":

This shows that most people have no rules for their work, and their time and energy are over-consumed every day. We need to find a solution...

Can you provide such services or training to specific groups of people?

Or design corresponding products for a certain group of people. After all, books are for everyone.

But to be honest, is there any product that can target everyone? And you only need to serve one group well, that's enough.

for example:

a) Working methods and time management methods for mothers at home...

After all, the time spent taking care of children is scattered. How can we plan it more systematically and make good use of the time?

b) Learning methods and concentration control methods for children in elementary school, junior high school, and high school...

Because children at each stage have different concentration levels, a kindergarten child may only be able to concentrate on studying for a few minutes, while a high school child may be able to maintain concentration on studying for 45 minutes (one class).

Can you provide a personalized service to design learning methods or learning time management based on each child's situation?

This is a non-standard product, providing personalized services to customers! There is no peer and standardized price to compare...

c) For white-collar work methods, deal with document process planning...

White-collar workers have a lot of work to do every day. If they don’t have proper time management and process management, they will be inefficient and exhausted at the end of the day.

If we teach this group how to design their work processes and know when to handle what type of work, they can achieve optimal efficiency and handle easy work during times when their concentration is low, then their work efficiency will be very high throughout the day.

d) Time management, energy and focus management for bosses or freelancers...

After all, Teacher Fox is also a freelance worker. The biggest advantage of this type of people is "freedom", but the thing that is most likely to cause problems is also "freedom".

As long as you don't manage your time, energy and concentration well, and waste your time chatting and managing messy things every day, you will find that after a month, you seem to be very busy, but you haven't done any substantial work, let alone any benefits.

This is also the biggest problem faced by most bosses and freelancers, and also a huge pain point.

Because this will lead to the death of the project, the investment will be wasted, and the inner pressure is huge...

Okay, these are just some random examples to help you understand. There is a lot of information that can be dug up behind them, but due to limited space, I will not go into details here.

at last

Through the ideas and channels mentioned above, can you find a project entry point or product inspiration that suits you?

If your answer is yes, you can continue to pay attention to the next few articles by Teacher Fox. I will continue to lead you to explore more industries and products step by step from different angles.

Moreover, I will share with you the detailed implementation plan from the perspectives of product sales, customer groups, layout, human nature, etc., hoping to help friends with the same frequency avoid detours and grow together!