In this interactive workshop, we explore best practices in performing primary market research in an emerging/frontier market where the researchers themselves may not speak the language or know the culture or use case.

1. Get Stuff Done Clinics for
Developing World Entrepreneurs
Primary Market Research
Elaine Chen, Senior Lecturer and EIR
Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship
November 2018

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4. Orbit.mit.edu
Nick Meyer
MIT, 5 Start Ups,
YC alum, hipster
Trish Cotter
Doctorate, 2 Garage
to IPO, Netezza
Operations
Elaine Chen
MIT, 5+ Start Ups,
Corporate, Hardware
/ Software/ Mfg
Kit Hickey
MIT, Co-Founder
Ministry of Supply,
Finance guru
Will Sanchez
MIT Ph.D., 2
startups, Telefonica
and CIA
Founder dating
Job posting
Knowledgebase
Community
EIR office hours
Deals and more
http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu | @eshipmit

5. OKOA PROJECT
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6. Neonatal Fatality per 1000 live births:
Tanzania: 21.1; US: 3.6
6% women die in childbirth or pregnancy
90% of maternal deaths are preventable

8. Exercise 1:
Figure out the top 3 q’s you need to answer –
and how you will answer these questions
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9. Points to ponder when doing
PMR in another country
• Assume you don’t know anything about how anything works
• Be ready to challenge yourself at every step
• Scalable solutions from another country may not survive the
relocation – be prepared to localize
• Super important to interview people on the ground (not experts
who have talked to people on the ground)
• Most effective thing to do is to live there for a few weeks to
observe / shadow your end users, and immerse yourself in the
target use case

10. Tools of the trade
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Detailed Interviews Observation Immersion
Landing page experimentsCard sorting exercise Facebook ad experiments

11. PROMETHEAN POWER
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14. Reflections from field work
• Interviews can be tough when you don’t speak the language.
Observation and immersion are more effective
• Be ready to work through a translator – often you will find eager
volunteers, you may not always need to hire one
• When doing B2B enterprise research – work from the top down (so
your champion can authorize their employees to speak with you)
• Go in pairs. Let the interviewer focus, and someone else take notes
• Take video when you can
• Give people time to get used to you
• Go back a 2nd or a 3rd time to see what’s really going on (because
sometimes they may put on a show for you the 1st time)
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15. Interview Technique Cheat Sheet
• Establish rapport before you begin
• Be 100% present. Don’t multitask.
• Listen and observe. Pay attention to body language.
• Don’t follow a script line by line. Let the subject lead.
• Ask short, open ended questions – and practice active listening.
• ”Tell me about the last time…”
• “Tell me about how you…”
• ”You said XXX. Tell me more?”
• “Why?” | “Why not?”
• …

16. Exercise 2:
Card sorting exercise
Write down 5 feature ideas per team
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17. Points to ponder with card sorting
• Card sorting is a great way to get started in situations where open
ended interviews are hard to do (e.g. translation needed)
• You can use it for anything: Prioritizing needs/wants; prioritizing
features (but it works best for features)
• Run two rounds of card sorting with voice over:
• Elimination round
• Prioritization round
• Make sure you engage in conversation and ask “why”? “Why not”
– and be prepared to explain features the customer does not
understand

18. Best practices from the field
• Plan! But be flexible on the ground
• Do secondary research to learn as much as you can as
quickly as you can…
• … But book a scouting trip at your earliest convenience
• Come back, regroup and replan…
• … Then go back for a longer trip (Promethean’s cofounders
spent 1 month in India the second time around)
• Be prepared to have your assumptions be challenged – and
let the data guide your product and venture
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20. Get out of the building!

21. Additional resources
• “3 Go-to techniques for Primary Market Research” – Elaine Chen, Huffington Post
• “Talking to Humans” E-book - Giff Constable
• PMR Primer - Elaine Chen
• Templates and samples – Elaine Chen
• Research protocol template
• Sample discussion guide
• Sample recruitment questionnaire
• Sample photo release form
• Interview notes template
• Persona template
• Example persona project – “The Science of Clean” (15.S16, 2H 2012)
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22. Thank you
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http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu