How to Get Data In Support Of Starting A Business: How to Set up a Business Using Focus Group Discussion

When you like to start a business, first thing you need to do is to have an analysis of the prospective buyer of your product -- who will be your customer. There are lots of ways to gather data: it can be secondary or primary data. Either way you need to analyze the demographic composition if a certain locality.

Demographic composition is the data on population -- age and sex distribution of people in the area. You can also conduct a Focus Group Discussion among target groups.

After the focus group discussion, now you can analyze the responses. This will be helpful in setting up a business in the area as you will know the prospective customer.

• The most innovative way to gather data is Focus Group Discussion and it is called a primary data collection technique. It is simply gathering people and ask questionnaire in a round table with a moderator asking some basic pertinent questions you need to start a new business.

1. Primary Data collection is gathering data in terms of interviewing, focus group discussion or survey data. This means there is a first had way of gathering data. You can devise a questionnaire and interview people with certain age group on their preference for a certain product and their willingness to try a new product.
2. Secondary Data collection is data which are collected already and can be found in the local city hall offices, census data and other demographic data. Demographic data pertains to the population composition of an area usually data which can be found in the local census bureau or the Internet government census portals.

What you need to do to collect data in a Focus Group Discussion: A Sample Steps to follow:

• Know your objectives and set your questionnaire and the ages and sex of the people who will be included in the Focus Group Discussion

The Questionnaire: Devise a questionnaire in order to know the flexibility of the certain age group if a product is to be introduced in the area

• Are they willing to buy the product, at what amount?
• What are the necessary quality of the product they are looking for
• What are their expectations of the products and of the services rendered?
• Select age groups and sex of the participants to the Focus Group Discussion. The number of participants should be at least six to have a nice discussion
• Ask the help of the city hall to gather the participants in the group or go to the Homeowners Association and ask their help to organize the people who will participate in the Focus Group Discussion. Schedule it on a weekend so that they will be available.
• Prepare some kind of tokens and snacks for the participants.
• Send a letter prior to the date and the venue where the prospective participants will meet
• Contact a moderator for the Focus Group Discussion and give him/her the questionnaire so he can master it before the meeting.
• Bring the necessary tape recorder to record the discussion
• Get somebody as a note taker while recording the conversation or Focus Group Discussion

Now you can analyze primary data collected from census and the result of the Focus Group Discussion. Take time analyzing the data and you can have a good start in your business venture.