Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi,

Does anyone know where I can find some good information on potential market size (revenues or customers) for the software sector?  Specifically I`m trying figure out the size of the data conversion market.

Thanks!

KW

Could you be more specific as to what kind of data conversion? The office-production converters pretty much don`t matter, as so many people use Word, for example, or Excel, where everything converts to .XLS. Is this for databases, or other forms of data? Is the format important, or only the data itself? If so, what format would it generally be and who would want to convert it to some other format?

Hi,

I was looking at data conversion as being taking a file format and its contents from one structure to another so that information can be dumped out of one application and read into another -- this may involve rearranging of elements, calculations, sorting, and filtering.

I`ve done more research and found that the types of data conversion I speak of are a subset of data integration.

In general, are there good sources to learn the size of a particular industry sector?

I done done a lot of surfing reviewing potential competitor`s websites, however, may of these firms are privately held, and I can`t get any sales figures.

Thanks!

KW

I`m not a business analyst, so I don`t know the data sources for sector information. But they`re obviously out there, as we constantly see reports that some sector is increasing or decreasing in terms of size, volume, sales, value, and so on.

I do know, however, that two forces are at work in today`s enterprise environment, both of which are taking on growing importance. The first is legacy application conversions, and the second is cross-platform integration, going along with SAO. Both these concerns would likely involve data conversions, and might be a place to start?

This information is actually rather easy to come by as long as you know the associates SIC codes for the industry. All of revenue and earnings information is a matter of public record at some level, even if the company is privately held. You just have to know where to look. If you let us know more precisely the target group you are after, or even a few companies that fall into that genre of service, I`m sure we could be of some assistance.

What is the best way to go about doing market reasearch before investing capital in a business that I may be the only one interested in? I am not sure that I would have customers. Is there a way that I can aleviate some of my fears by finding out that I would actually have a customer base, without spending money for a professional market research firm to tell if it is a good or bad idea?

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"DARE GREATLY. IT IS NOT THE CRITIC WHO COUNTS, NOT THE MAN WHO POINTS OUT HOW THE STRONG MAN STUMBLED OR WHERE THE DOER OF DEEDS COULD HAVE DONE BETTER. THE CREDIT BELONGS TO THE MAN WHO IS ACTUALLY IN THE ARENA."                            THEODORE ROOSEVELT

One idea would be to post your product here on Startup Nation (SuN). List a Web site, or just describe what it is you`re thinking of selling. You`ll get some feedback as to the feasibility, potential problems, and how to maybe overcome those problems. :-) Nobody`s out to steal ideas here, everyone`s got plenty of their own. So what is it you`re thinking of going into business with?

This can be very expensive

I was hoping that there is a legal way to obtain the past five years Tax information on none government companies. 

Any help is appreciated


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Ryan J. If you dig and find nothing, dig deeper or go somewhere else and dig.

Unless it is a Publicly Traded Company, or, is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. I don`t know. I would suggest asking them directly - if the inquiry is not dubious in nature.

Private companies have no need or incentive to disclose how profitable they are, highly unlikely that you will get that information.

If what you are trying to do is asses the market size for something for free you may want to try places like the Government`s library or if you are looking at international markets go back one page. If you want it spoon fed to you, your best bet would be something like Marketsearch but they are a tad pricy.