Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

"A feasibility study is a preliminary study undertaken to determine and document a project`s viability ^[1] or the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. The term is also used to describe the preliminary analysis of an existing system to see if it is worth upgrading all or a part. Also known as feasibility analysis" -wikipedia

I am curious to know how many people, if any, hired out professional services to conduct a feasibility study. And if they did, at what point did you have the study done?  When you were looking for a business loan?  Prior to start up?  One friend of mine has the opinion that they are worth their weight in gold... if you`re looking for additional financing.

I am very interested to hear from people who have some experience with this.
This relates to my personal situation because we are working on an internet start up.  We know the concept is sound, and that there is demand for it.  We don`t need financing, we have more than enough to cover one year of operational expenses, plus an additional 25% cushion in the case of an emergency.  Is it logical to hold off on a professional feasibility study until a later date in time?  Say, when we need additional financing because the business is ready to expand?

Thanks gang,

Ryan

ehhh, does anybody have experience with hiring out a professional feasibility study??

Actually, we used eBay for our feasibility study. We knew that eBay was more a flea market, and the type of buyer would be looking for cheap prices. However, we also thought that if we could interest those buyers, it likely would be easier to interest the general public. Turns out we were right.

However, we ran three different product ideas through eBay, and the first two simply failed. At the same time, we had a simple Web page up, connecting to the eBay ads. None of it worked. It was only the third product line that worked.

Following that, we decided to pursue the third idea, and that`s continued to be a strong and viable business.

Being totally bootstrappers, we had zero money to hire professionals for anything.