The BRIDGE New Venture Program Research Guide

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• Library databases may have limited value for you depending on the nature of your venture.
• The market research you do find may not be specific enough to your venture, e.g. geography, industry, customer segment.
• Doing market research is time-consuming - be careful to allocate your time appropriately between primary and secondary market research.
• Market research may produce conflicting data about your market.  Look at the sources involved, evaluate for potential bias or methodology issues, and do your best to triangulate.
• Market research can be messy. Sometimes, you have to use a best-guess or an estimate when sizing or analyzing a market. 
• Market research is no substitute for a powerful story about the problem your team is trying to solve - but all startups need to do it!

Market research by startups often gets boiled down to just one or two slides in a pitch deck.

• Example AirBnB

So don't lose perspective!