Understanding consumer demand for your product or service with Horizon can make sense during several phases of the new product development process.

Whether you're still in the ideation phase or already have an MVP in development, Horizon can help you determine consumer demand at several stages of product development.

Super Early Stage (Idea Phase)

When in the ideation phase for your new product, it is crucial to understand whether or not your idea meets sufficient interest within your target market to save time, money, and resources.

Further, this data will be a valid basis for your business case and any investors or management pitch for your new product idea.

Gone are the days of creating mature prototypes to measure market interest for your idea. All you need is

• A landing page that includes your product's value proposition, features/benefits, and compelling Call-To-Actions leads to a sign-up field in another popup.
• An ad campaign to acquire traffic from your target market

Early Stage (Pre-Prototype)

Suppose you already have a well-established idea with initial traction from your target market via qualitative feedback and plan to start building the prototype. In that case, you should try to squeeze in a consumer demand test to understand if your idea has a product-market fit.

It is essential to not only rely on qualitative feedback that can be biased, but you should also measure unsolicited customer interactions with your idea.

A consumer demand test at this stage lets you:

• expose your idea to your target market before building a refined prototype
• significantly reduces the risk of wasted investment if your target group's interest is insufficient
• allows you to review and iterate your idea once more to hit the nail on the head with your offering

<aside> 💡 ... This applies also and especially after you went through qualitative market research.

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Later Stage (Prototype)

It is not too late to run a consumer demand test if you already have an established prototype. Developing the actual product or MVP as the next step can cause problems if there is no product-market fit.

A consumer demand test before that step will help you avoid developing the wrong product.