Reflection – Launching a Startup Niche

Challenge

I am working on idea with an incubation center, an idea to launch a startup in the Esports industry which  in my country is still an informal sector, the idea is to find a niche to target the right customer base and  launch with a growth mindset. The project scope includes that the right target audience is selected using  the right channel and an ideal niche is selected in order to not only grow the company but the industry  as a whole. We have a timeline of 5 to 6 six months to validate the niche and porotype the model. We’ll  try to uncover which niche can be explored and validated using a certain set of target audience.

Selection

Learning launch tool will be used which will help test the idea and prototype. In the course we studied, it  is all about testing and experimenting instead of jumping directly to a business model.

Application

First and foremost, we’ll create a hypothesis. The idea is to launch a startup in Esports industry. The  need of specific customer, a teenager trying to explore opportunities in Esports needs to put his skills to  test and need a platform to monetize his skills.  We tested our key assumptions to determine and  validate different niches like competitive gaming, content gaming and game development. Then comes  in data to eliminate the confirmation bias as mentioned in the video lecture. Using the data we looked  for confirming and disconfirming facts. The major disconfirming facts were the fact that parents do not  allow their children to play games and there is a negative connotation attached to the Esports. While  they exists, the confirming facts and a diverse team established that using data it is evident the market is  huge, a younger population which is the highest in proportion shows to the growth potential in  competitive gaming. So we move on the learning launch 0.2. The survey included the likelihood of  participation in an Esports competition, time spent polishing and developing skills in competitive games,  feelings about a career in competitive gaming and history of games played and time spent on particular  games.

So once establishing our key assumptions and using the data to gauge our value creation and  deliverability. We believe that competitive gaming can prove to be a “needle mover”. We prioritized and  tested the key assumptions and using the confirming facts we decide to continue development.

Insight

After using the learning launch tool, we had a clearer picture of our key assumptions. The launch will be  based on the tests performed for these assumptions. This tool while validating our hypothesis, helped  become a base on to which our business model is developed and caters to. The team redirected all the  efforts to this assumption. Another very important insight was that we anticipated that creating gaming  content would be a more likely niche but the tests came out different and competitive gaming turned to  be a better area to direct our efforts for launch around. Using the data we’ve received, we have a better  picture as to which games we need to focus on, what concerns we need to cater to, what the customer  is more likely to engage in and what our process flow will look like to create maximum value and impact.

Approach

This was the most appropriate tool and the data collected will help as in the longer run to cater our  process and user experience around the customer needs. We can use these insights to not only focus on  this niche but to create value for customers. Our future projects and events will incorporate these  insights and create a better solution with higher value.

