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I wouldn't recommend you start with a survey. A long, long time ago when I was a junior management consultant a venture capitalist hired me to help him evaluate a new business opportunity. Having recently graduated from one of the nation's top business schools I knew exactly what to do first. "Ok," said I, "as a first step we'll have to do some market research to determine what people want and how big the market might be."
My client said, "No, build me the financial model first."
Being a really smart young consultant and knowing the first line in any financial model is "sales / revenue", I asked the VC how I could possibly build a financial model if I didn't have any idea what the sales figures would be. "We'll have to start with some market research -- it will let us estimate the market size, then we'll make a reasonable assumption of what market share we'll get, and voila, we'll have the first line in the financial model -- Sales!"
"No," he said, "we won't start there." He went on to tell me that we already had a good idea of what the costs might be to operate the business, and how much capital he needed to invest to acquire the needed assets and operate the business, and given the capital required, he knew exactly how much profit the business would need to generate to justify the investment.
"So," he said, "we'll start with the bottom line I need, add costs and voila, we'll have the sales number we need to make it work."
"Then," he continued, "knowing what our product costs we can estimate the margins and volumes needed to generate the net sales line. At that point we will have an reasonable idea of what the market and management have to do for us.
"And, then after we've done a 'gut check' on the feasibility of those numbers will we go into the market to test demand, prices, etc. Trust me, I've done this before."
I swallowed hard, and ran the numbers as he requested -- and what do you know? The required top line was so big and the number of customers needed to make it work so large, that it was first order obvious that the market would not support the venture. End of story.
I suggest you do something similar before you run your survey. Knowing the costs of the sub's operation, figure out how many passengers you'll need in a month / year (at a given price) to make the venture work. Then you have a hypothesis to test in the market place.
Good luck with your project!
PS I couldn't get to a survey from your link -- only a website that offered to help me create a survey.
My client said, "No, build me the financial model first."
Being a really smart young consultant and knowing the first line in any financial model is "sales / revenue", I asked the VC how I could possibly build a financial model if I didn't have any idea what the sales figures would be. "We'll have to start with some market research -- it will let us estimate the market size, then we'll make a reasonable assumption of what market share we'll get, and voila, we'll have the first line in the financial model -- Sales!"
"No," he said, "we won't start there." He went on to tell me that we already had a good idea of what the costs might be to operate the business, and how much capital he needed to invest to acquire the needed assets and operate the business, and given the capital required, he knew exactly how much profit the business would need to generate to justify the investment.
"So," he said, "we'll start with the bottom line I need, add costs and voila, we'll have the sales number we need to make it work."
"Then," he continued, "knowing what our product costs we can estimate the margins and volumes needed to generate the net sales line. At that point we will have an reasonable idea of what the market and management have to do for us.
"And, then after we've done a 'gut check' on the feasibility of those numbers will we go into the market to test demand, prices, etc. Trust me, I've done this before."
I swallowed hard, and ran the numbers as he requested -- and what do you know? The required top line was so big and the number of customers needed to make it work so large, that it was first order obvious that the market would not support the venture. End of story.
I suggest you do something similar before you run your survey. Knowing the costs of the sub's operation, figure out how many passengers you'll need in a month / year (at a given price) to make the venture work. Then you have a hypothesis to test in the market place.
Good luck with your project!
PS I couldn't get to a survey from your link -- only a website that offered to help me create a survey.
