Research Guides: ENT 315: Principles of Innovation & Entrepreneurship: Home

Michael Schwartz Library

Resources

General Market Research Databases

ReferenceUSA This link opens in a new window
Provides real-time access to directory information for 10.5 million businesses. Locate every business in the U.S. by company name, location, or type of business. In addition to contact information, ReferenceUSA provides full corporate affiliation linkage, multiple contact names, FAX and toll free numbers, single point mapping, and credit ratings.
IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Provides business reports in industry market research, industry risk ratings, company research, global industry research, and economic and demographic data. Excessive downloads from IBISWorld will trigger an access block. Please be judicious.

Census Business Builder
Use the CBB to identify consumer spending estimates for a variety of product and service segments

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Index, abstracts, and full text covering scholarly business journals, business and industry news on management, economics, marketing, finance, accounting, international business and much more.

Business Model Canvas research

ReferenceUSA This link opens in a new window
Provides real-time access to directory information for 10.5 million businesses. Locate every business in the U.S. by company name, location, or type of business. In addition to contact information, ReferenceUSA provides full corporate affiliation linkage, multiple contact names, FAX and toll free numbers, single point mapping, and credit ratings.

Crunchbase
Startup + tech company directory. Can be useful to find top competitors in technology categories.

You can also search for competitors 'in the marketplace' on Amazon, Google, at physical locations, or on app stores.

IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Provides business reports in industry market research, industry risk ratings, company research, global industry research, and economic and demographic data. Excessive downloads from IBISWorld will trigger an access block. Please be judicious.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Index, abstracts, and full text covering scholarly business journals, business and industry news on management, economics, marketing, finance, accounting, international business and much more.

Facebook Audience Insights
Find audience sizes for different interest categories of Facebook users. Facebook Audiences may not match perfectly with real market size, but it can be a way to estimate market size.

Facebook Audience Insights tutorial

data.census.gov
Go to source for demographics

IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Provides business reports in industry market research, industry risk ratings, company research, global industry research, and economic and demographic data. Excessive downloads from IBISWorld will trigger an access block. Please be judicious.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Index, abstracts, and full text covering scholarly business journals, business and industry news on management, economics, marketing, finance, accounting, international business and much more.

Facebook Audience Insights
Facebook Audiences can help you identify patterns for your largest customer segments.
Hubspot: How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas
Targeted at B2B marketing but a useful guide.

Awareness + Promotion

Identify online communities where your customers "live" online. Message boards, websites, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn, Instagram influencer accounts, etc.

SimilarWeb
Statistics on internet websites and some apps. Identify popularity in categories, search traffic, etc.

Actual distribution channels

By looking at the marketplace, how are other competitors distributing their service or product?

You can search for distributor and wholesale suppliers by searching 'industry keyword' and 'distributor/wholesaler' in Google.

The Census provides some information on sales channels in their Product by Industry table. Use the 'Codes' option to filter by product type and industries reported. This can give you an idea of different retail channels.

Michael Schwartz Library

ENT 315: Principles of Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Your personal librarian: Ben Richards

Primary Research Resources

Resources

Business Model Canvas research