MBA1545 Q&A Wednesday: I’m having a hard time with my market analysis. How do I get started?

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If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over at omar100mba.net and I'll answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday. Today's question is from Matthew. Matthew asks, I'm having a hard time with my market analysis. I'm in a very niche, specialized industry. How do I get started? Matthew, we got your back. And Matthew has a detailed question with specific information in his industry. So we're going to get into the full question with all the information in today's episode. But Matthew's starting a large scale aquaculture facility. He's going to be in the fish industry. Okay. He's going to be supplying seafood to those who sell it. It's a very niche industry. It's not something that's easily researched online. How does he understand the market he's getting into? How to build the right facility, how to get into this marketplace, how to create his customer avatar and serve those customers? We're going to get into that in today's episode. It's a very special situation. So it needs a special answer. But if you have A niche business. You're going to really benefit from today's episode because sometimes it's not that simple. It's a little bit complicated. And in order for you to get the information you need about your industry so you can be successful, you're going to have to do something a little bit different. You're not going to be able to just do the run of the mill Google search or buy some report offline. I can't wait to answer today's question on Q and A Wednesday. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So let me get into the details of Matthew's question in today's Q and A Wednesday. I just found your podcast and I'm currently working on my business plan. However, I'm having a hard time writing my market report. The business I'm trying to build is a large scale aquaculture business. This would be at a national scale, but whenever looking for information online, I'm having a hard time, which is understandable because I'm not selling directly to the consumer. I'm actually selling to people that sell fish. Restaurants, grocers, wholesalers. Could I assume that I should just focus on the overall growth of the industry, of the seafood market as well as import, export. This is like black magic to me. I'm not really sure where to start. Looking forward to hearing from you, Matthew. Matthew, we got your back. First of all, you are right, you're not in an industry where you're selling direct to customer or direct to consumer. You're actually selling to suppliers like you mentioned, restaurants, grocery stores, supermarkets, chains. So information is not so simple or not so easy to find online. What you need to do though is you need to learn a little bit more about the industry itself. And you are right. Learning a little bit more about the seafood industry in general in your country will help and it will give you an understanding of some margins, the cost of things, profit. If the market's going up, it's going down. What are some determining factors? This is going to give you some generalities and it's going to be helpful. But in order for you to get the whole picture, you really need an insider. You need somebody that is in the industry already and you need to speak to them and get some information. It doesn't have to be somebody that you work with or consult with for a long period of time. This literally could be a couple of meetings over a cup of coffee and you might say to yourself, well, I can't really speak to anybody because they're going to be my competitor. I can't speak to another seafood supplier because they're not going to want to help me. Well, that's okay. You don't need to speak to another seafood supplier. You need to speak to a sister company, somebody that's going to be dealing with the same people that you will deal with, the same shipping companies, the same consumer, like restaurants or grocery stores. So you can find somebody that supplies meat, for example, or chicken or truffles. It doesn't really matter as long as the same people you're going to be dealing with are the same ones they deal with. Now, your best bet is to speak to somebody that is in your local community. They don't have to be nationwide. They don't have to be as large scale as you are, but they could be like a local butcher that supplies the steaks to the local pub or the local restaurant. They love their steaks because they're super organic and all that kind of stuff. You can go small scale at the beginning to understand the nature of the industry. Okay? To understand what you're getting into, understand the cost of doing business with these types of businesses. And you probably already know somebody in this industry, or maybe it is your local butcher or your local farmer. And you would be surprised how many of them are willing to help you out. They know how it feels to be you. And you're not a competitor. It just takes a little bit of courage for you to just rock up to your local farmer, to your local butcher, to. To whoever supplies the meats or the chicken or the vegetables or whatever, to the same places. You're gonna be selling to restaurants, grocery stores, things like that, and approach them and say, hey, can I speak to the owner? Can I speak to the manager here? And they might be around. If not, find out when they are around and just have a quick conversation. Say, hey, my name is so and so. I'm gonna be getting into the fish industry. I know that this is different from what you do, but I'd love to, you know, pick your brain because you're a few steps ahead of me in the meat industry or the chicken industry. I'd love to grab a cup of coffee, buy you lunch, buy you dinner. I know this seems a little bit forward, but I, you know how hard this industry is, you know, hard to get information. I have a whole bunch of questions. I'd love for you to help me out. More chances than not they're going to say yes, and if they say no, just move on to the next person. Somebody will say, yes. And this is where you ask them the questions. You need to know about that market, about the profit margins, about how long are these deals, how long are these supply contracts are, what's the cost of doing business? Another method that I would recommend is if you know somebody that knows somebody in that industry, an introduction can help a lot. If somebody can make an introduction to you, say, hey, this is my buddy Matthew. He's actually starting a business that's similar to yours, which is in the seafood industry. But he needs to learn a little bit more about how you get into this kind of business. Would you mind spending, you know, 30 minutes an hour over a cup of coffee? His treat? Most will say yes. This is actually what happened to me when I started in the software industry with Webinar Ninja. I got introduced to Noah Kagan, who runs Sumo.com by my buddy John Corcoran. And I basically tell Noah, hey, man, this is the first time I met him. It was over a Skype call. I said, hey, I'm starting this SaaS company, this software company. I know you've done this already a bunch of times. You're a few years ahead of me. What should I look out for? I had a whole bunch of questions for him, and he was super helpful. We were in competitive products. It wasn't even that kind of conversation. It was kind of like, hey, I'm starting out. I was you a few years ago. Can you help me? Most people say yes. So you need somebody that kind of understands what you're getting into, even if it's at a smaller scale than what you are aspiring to do. Now, that is one option. Okay. But a second option is this. You can look into acquiring a business similar like yours. It's good because they already did all the work, they already did all the research, and they're going to put it on the table for you so you can be interested in buying their business, so you can improve it and grow it and all that kind of stuff. And you might buy the businesses, you might not. But the point here is, is that they're ready to give you the information. And these businesses are going to be willing to share because for them, they're on their way out, they have no secrets to keep, and you may even want to be transparent with them and say, hey, I probably won't buy your business, but I want to learn a little bit more about how you ran it. Because I'm thinking about starting something similar. Somebody who is on their way out, who's looking to retire. They're going to be more willing to help you out and say, hey listen buddy, here are some things you need to watch out for. I did it. 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To wrap up today's Q and A, Wednesday's question from Matthew this is a tough one, but you gotta get creative. You gotta find people that know what you want to know. Whether it's a sister type of business, supplying to the same suppliers, have the same customers as the ones you're going to have, or going out and looking at a business that is similar to what you want to start and learning more from them. If they're looking to sell a business, they're going to be more willing to share information. They may even give you the market report they have. Heck, you might even want to buy it from them. Those are some options for you, Matthew. Hopefully this is helpful. Hopefully you can implement this and see your business flourish. Congratulations on taking the first steps and really working hard on your new business. Please don't hesitate to write me back and let me know how it all went. Guys, if you have a question you want to ask here on Q and A Wednesday, just email me over@omar00mba.net super simple. I can answer for you right here on the show. Not only to help you, but to help others who have a similar question or a similar problem that needs solving just like you. Thank you so much for tuning in. Don't forget to hit subscribe. Subscribe by hitting subscribe on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. Whether it's Stitcher Radio or Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Himalaya. We're on every single app. Hit subscribe so you get the next episode automatically. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. What I love about entrepreneurship, what I love about business is it forces you to be creative with solutions it's almost like a video game. You know, this door is closed, so I got to find another way to get around. I got to be creative about how I'm going to get the information, how I'm going to learn what I need to learn. I always ask myself if I need something, if I need to learn something, I need to find out something. I ask myself, who already knows this information? Who can I tap into that can just give me the information instead of me trying to learn it myself or research it myself? Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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