Market Research Template
A free, fillable 7-step market research template — market size, competitors, customer interview questions, search demand, and pricing. Check off each step, add your notes, then copy or print it. No signup.
1. Define your research question
Before you Google anything, get specific about what you're actually trying to find out. Vague research (“is this a good idea?”) produces vague answers.
- Write one sentence describing the specific business idea you're testing
- Define the single question this research needs to answer (e.g. "Will people switch from spreadsheets to this?")
- Name the decision this research will inform — launch, pivot, or kill
- Set a deadline — open-ended research never ends, it just becomes procrastination
- List your 2-3 biggest untested assumptions (these are what the rest of this template checks)
2. Size the market (TAM / SAM / SOM)
A big idea in a market too small to matter isn't a big idea. Size it before you build.
- Find your TAM — total addressable market if you owned the whole category
- Narrow to your SAM — the slice you can realistically reach given your channel and geography
- Estimate your SOM — what you could realistically capture in year 1-2
- Sanity-check top-down (industry report or government stats) against bottom-up (price × realistic customer count)
- Flag the number as a range, not a precise figure — market size estimates are directional
3. Map the competitive landscape
If there's real demand, someone is already serving it — even badly. Find them.
- List every direct competitor — same solution, same customer
- List indirect competitors and substitutes — what people use instead today (including "nothing," spreadsheets, or hiring someone)
- For each: pricing, target customer, key strength, key weakness
- Read their negative reviews — that's a free list of the gaps you could fill
- Identify your wedge — the specific reason someone would switch to you
4. Talk to potential customers
This is the highest-signal step and the one most people skip. Aim for 8-12 real conversations before drawing conclusions.
- Recruit 8-12 people who match your target customer — not friends or family who'll just be nice
- Ask about their past behavior, not hypotheticals — "tell me about the last time you dealt with this" beats "would you use this?"
- Use the question bank below and let them talk more than you do
- Write down their exact words for the problem — reuse that language in your marketing later
- Look for the same pattern across at least 5 conversations before you trust it
Market research questions to ask
- What's the hardest part about this today?
- Walk me through the last time this happened — what did you actually do?
- What are you using to solve this now?
- What do you like and dislike about that?
- How much time or money does this cost you today?
- What have you already tried that didn't work?
- If this problem disappeared tomorrow, what would that be worth to you?
- Who else is involved in deciding how to solve this?
- What would make you switch from what you use now?
- Have you ever paid for something to solve this? What?
- What's missing from the tools or services you've tried?
- Is this a top-3 priority for you right now, or a nice-to-have?
5. Check search demand
Interviews tell you what people say; search data tells you what people do when no one's watching. Cross-check both.
- Search your core keyword and 5-10 phrasing variations — is anyone searching for this at all?
- Check monthly search volume and whether it's growing, flat, or declining
- Look at who's currently ranking — established players or scrappy competitors you could out-execute?
- Search Reddit, forums, and Facebook groups for people describing this problem unprompted
- Note the exact terms people use — jargon that differs from your own is a red flag
6. Test pricing
People say they'd pay; a card number is the only honest answer. Get as close to real money as you can.
- Ask what they currently pay for alternatives — including their time, valued at their hourly rate
- Present 2-3 concrete price points and watch the reaction, not just the words ("too cheap," "fair," "too much")
- Run a real commitment test if you can — a pre-order, a deposit, or a waitlist that asks for a card
- Compare to the competitor pricing you mapped in step 3 — are you priced as a commodity or a premium?
7. Synthesize and decide
All the research in the world doesn't matter if it doesn't end in a decision. Force yourself to one.
- Go back to the question you wrote in step 1 — did you actually answer it?
- Weigh the signals together: real demand, a real gap versus competitors, real willingness to pay
- Write a one-paragraph verdict — Go, Pivot, or No-Go — and the single biggest reason why
- Decide your next concrete action either way, with a date attached
This template gets you real signal, but running all 7 steps by hand takes days. IdeaCrystal automates them — market size, competitors, search demand, and pricing — into one report.
Or let us run all 7 steps for you →GUIDE
How to use this market research template
Work through the 7 sections in order — each builds on the last. Start by writing down the exact question you’re trying to answer (step 1); everything after that exists to answer it. Size the market and map competitors first (steps 2-3) using research you can do from your desk in an afternoon. Then do the harder, higher-signal work: talk to 8-12 real potential customers (step 4) and check whether people are actually searching for a solution (step 5). Only after you have real answers on demand and competition should you test pricing (step 6) — pricing a product nobody wants is a wasted conversation. Finish by forcing a written verdict (step 7): Go, Pivot, or No-Go, with a reason.
Check items off as you complete them, jot findings straight into the notes field under each section, and use “Copy this section as markdown” to paste your progress into a doc, or “Copy full template” once you’re done. Your checkboxes and notes are saved locally in your browser, so you can close the tab and pick up where you left off.
MISTAKES
Common DIY market research mistakes
- Asking "would you use this?" instead of about past behavior. People are bad at predicting their own future actions but good at reporting what they actually did last time — ask about the last time, not the hypothetical next time.
- Only interviewing friends and family. They want to be supportive, not honest, which is the opposite of what market research needs. Recruit strangers who actually match your target customer.
- Treating search volume as the whole answer. Zero search volume can mean zero demand, or it can mean the market doesn’t have a name for the problem yet — pair search demand with real conversations before you conclude either way.
- Skipping competitors because "there's no competition." No direct competitor almost always means people are solving the problem another way — a spreadsheet, a freelancer, doing without. That's still your competition.
- Researching until you find the answer you want. Open-ended research without a deadline (step 1) quietly turns into confirmation bias — set a stop date before you start.
- Never asking about price. "I’d love this" and "I’d pay $30/month for this" are different sentences — skipping the pricing conversation is the most common reason validated ideas still don’t make money.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is a market research template?
A market research template is a structured checklist that walks you through validating a business idea step by step — defining the question you're answering, sizing the market, mapping competitors, talking to customers, checking search demand, testing pricing, and synthesizing a verdict. It exists so you research in a fixed order instead of randomly Googling and calling it done.
What questions should I ask in market research?
The best market research questions ask about past behavior, not hypothetical intent: "walk me through the last time this happened" beats "would you use this?" because people are unreliable predictors of their own future behavior but accurate reporters of what they already did. Cover four areas — the problem itself, what they currently use to solve it, what they'd pay, and who else is involved in the decision. The full question bank is built into step 4 of the template above.
How do I do market research myself without paying an agency?
DIY market research is entirely doable for an early-stage idea: you need free tools (a keyword search, Reddit, competitor websites) and 8-12 real conversations with people who match your target customer — not a research firm. The steps are the same either way; an agency mostly buys you volume and a report format, not a fundamentally different method. This template is built to be run solo, in a few days, at zero cost.
How many people should I interview for market research?
8-12 conversations is usually enough to see whether a pattern holds. Fewer than 5 and you're reacting to individual opinions, not a signal; more than 12-15 and you're usually just confirming what you already learned unless you're deliberately testing a very different customer segment. Stop when the same problem, in roughly the same words, keeps coming up unprompted.
What's the difference between primary and secondary market research?
Primary research is data you generate yourself — customer interviews, surveys, pricing tests. Secondary research is data that already exists — industry reports, search volume, competitor pricing pages, government statistics. Good DIY market research uses both: secondary research to size the market and check search demand fast, primary research (the interviews) to find out things no report will ever tell you.
How long should market research take before I decide?
For most early-stage ideas, 1-2 weeks is enough to run all 7 steps of this template — longer than that and you're usually stalling, not learning. Set the deadline before you start (step 1) so "more research" doesn't quietly become an excuse to avoid a decision you're afraid of.
Can I skip straight to building if I'm already confident in the idea?
You can, but confidence isn't evidence — most founders who skip research are confident right up until they find out nobody's searching for it or three competitors already own the space. The interviews and search-demand steps (4 and 5) take a day or two combined and catch the most common reasons ideas fail before you've spent months building.
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