Strong Eagle wrote:cogentbyte wrote:Strong Eagle wrote:Who, or what kind of companies, are you identifying as your target market for your app development?
We are basically targeting anyone who needs web/mobile presence as well as firmware/hardware development. We are very new and are still trying to add in to our portfolio. We do have a Singaporean client(a company that I have worked with before starting Cogentbyte) that can give testimonials to my work.
"Anyone" is not a target. You will not succeed with "anyone" as the target. You must decided which segment of the market will be your specialty, then identify the companies you think would be interested, then identify the services you believe they would need from you.
Without such an approach, you have no way of creating your value add proposition. What will your five minute elevator speech sound like? "Gee, we can create anything for anybody?" No, I don't think so. Unless you can say something like, "We specialize in the creation of hardware level control software used by chip integrators in the next generation of smart appliances," or something like that, you are going to get nowhere at a high rate of speed.
You need to identify your target market... again, it's not "anyone"... there is no way you can succeed with such a broad, ill defined market segment. Imagine, for a moment, the guy that develops a new improved toothbrush. He thinks "everyone" will want to buy one. But, that's not the case at all. Only a certain segment of the population will buy his new toothbrush. People who are happy with their current toothbrush don't care. So, his target market is people who enjoy innovative products. Or maybe the toothbrush costs $50. So, his target market is further narrowed down to people who don't shop at the 5 cent store.
And if you can't identify which market segment you want to get into, it means you are in too much of a hurry. You need to do the research to identify where your possible matches with business entities (or the consumer market) would be and what sort of approach you would use to get your products and services in front of those matches.
Do you have a business plan? If not, you need one. Besides your target market, you need to know your competition, you need to develop your pricing structure, and you need to develop your sales plan, based on your marketing plan... sales and marketing are two completely different things.
And you're talking about selling when you can't yet identify exactly what you are selling and to whom you are selling it. "Everything" to "anyone" doesn't work.
That's my advice. Here's an outline of a business plan. You might not need all of it but you're going to want to think about most of it if you plan on succeeding. You may be able to pull off a startup without money, but you sure can't pull it off without a plan.
http://www.herberts.org/miscdocs/Sample ... ntents.pdf 
