So you've identified a social need, and worked out that there may be some market demand for your service or product. But how big is that demand - and will it be big enough to keep you in business?
As with much of the social business planning process, there'll be an element of inspired guesswork in deciding how big your market is. But try to come up with as accurate a figure as you can. For example, here's how we might estimate the size of the market for a new organic veg delivery scheme in Leeds.
Having done our research, we reckon that 5000 people in Leeds are in the market for a monthly organic veg box delivery. If each of those people was to order a monthly £10 box, the market would be worth £600,000 (£10 x 12 months x 5000 people). We estimate that 20% of these people would choose us, therefore our market share could eventually be worth £120,000 (20% of £600,000). In fact, given that research suggests that the market for organic veg is growing by 30% a year, then our 20% share of the Leeds market could eventually be worth a lot more than £120,000.
This is a very rough example, based on fictitious figures - but hopefully you'll get the idea.
So what are you going to do now?
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