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It sounds strange to say that you need to a pre-feasibility study in order to know if you need to do a feasibility study, but it's true! A little bit or early research will help you determine if you need to proceed with a full-blown investigation. We'll explain more in the following steps. Completing a thorough feasibility study is a time-consuming and sometimes expensive process. Thus, you want to try to save your time and money for investigating only the most promising of your ideas. If you're thinking about turning your jam-making into a business, for example, you should carefully identify other possible alternatives to this venture before you decide to jump full steam into a feasibility study. For example, have you considered simply selling your apples at the market? Your friends and relatives may all rave about the jam that you make and give as gifts, but as much as they like your product, it may be the case that consumers in general aren't willing regularly spend extra for an organic, homemade product. Before you decide to invest the time and money into a complete feasibility study, you need to realistically assess whether or not there is a need or demand for your idea. If there is, then you can proceed to study the idea in more depth. If not, then you can move on to your next idea. If you're hoping to sell locally, visit grocers and survey their shelves: if they have a paltry or non-existent display of homemade or organic jams, this could mean that there is no demand for the product. Similarly, if no or very few vendors at the farmer's market offer jam products, it could be because buyers aren't interested. If you're hoping to sell online, you can do a key word search for your product and pay attention to the initial results: if it seems like a lot of people are doing brisk business, it's possible that there's demand for your product. You'll later have to determine if you will be able to compete. Perhaps you've determined that there is in fact a demand for your idea or services. However, you also need to get an idea of how much competition you'll be up against. For example, even if your town has an active farmers' market, if there are ten other vendors who are all selling their homemade jams, jellies, and spreads, you're going to have to think about whether or not you'll be able to compete or offer consumers a different, more appealing product. Similarly, if you're hoping to sell online, you want to begin to get an idea about how many other people are selling similar products, or if there's a leading brand that dominates the market. Will you be able to compete? Begin to think about ways you can aim for a special niche market. Before you move on to the active stages of your feasibility study, you should consider whether or not there will be any insurmountable obstacles. For example, if you have a pet that comes into your home at any time of the day, you cannot manufacture food for sale in your home. You will thus need to prepare your jam in a separate structure. If there's no way you'll be able to meet these requirements, come up with the necessary funds, or tackle the associated remodeling, then it's probably best to put this idea on the back burner for now. If your initial investigation suggests that it looks like you have an idea that may be successful, it could be helpful to hire a consultant to manage and conduct your feasibility study. Depending upon the nature of your project, you may also need to commission reports from professionals such as engineers (if, for example, you are tasked with seeing if a public works project is feasible). Thoroughly research your need for expert consultations, and learn what their fees will be. You will either need to make sure to budget enough to cover these costs, or if the costs are too high even at this stage, you may not want or be able to continue with the study. You want your final report to be as objective as possible, so make it clear to whomever you hire that you want honest answers, and that you're not hiring them to give you the answer you want. Performing a feasibility study can be an involved process, and can easily take up a lot of time. If your initial analysis has indicated that you're sitting on a good idea and that you thus need to complete a more detailed study, you'll want to make sure that you can get the job done in a timely manner. Is the report due to your potential investors, your boss, or the city council by a certain date? If so, work backwards from the due date and make firm deadlines for when the individual phases of the study need to be completed.
Conduct a preliminary analysis. Consider your options. Begin to assess the demand for your idea. Begin to assess the competition. Assess the challenges. Decide if you should hire expert consultants. Set a time-table.