Market research for kids means finding out whether real people have the problem your child wants to solve, before spending money. Children aged 10 to 13 can do it by asking five to ten people what they did last time the problem came up, then looking for patterns in the answers.
Your 12-year-old bursts in. "Six people said they'd buy my phone grips!" He wants $60 for supplies. But six friends saying yes isn't six friends paying.
So ask:
"What did they actually do last time they had this problem?"
That question turns compliments into evidence. Here's how to help your child use it.
It is finding out what problems people have, what they do about them now and what they would value. For a child, that means a few short, supervised conversations. The Australian Government's business.gov.au describes market research as a way to learn about customers, competitors and products.
It stops them spending money on an idea nobody needs. The trap is the polite yes: friends asked "Would you buy this?" almost always say yes. Questions about what people have actually done are far more useful.
Tallying answers is also a small version of the statistical investigations in the Australian Curriculum.
Ask about past behaviour, not opinions of the idea. JuniorCEO Lab uses three question types: Past ("What did you do last time?"), Pain ("What was the most annoying part?") and Pay ("Have you spent money trying to fix it?").
| Weak question | Better question |
|---|---|
| "Would you buy my phone grip?" | "What do you do now to stop dropping your phone?" |
| "How much would you pay?" | "What did you pay last time you bought something like this?" |
| "Is this a good idea?" | "What's the most frustrating part of this for you?" |
Five to ten is enough to spot patterns, but not enough to prove people will buy. Look for repetition: if four out of seven describe the same frustration, it is worth exploring.
Help your child plan questions, find safe people to ask and make sense of the answers. This is the Ask step of Notice, Ask, Try, Improve, from our guide to entrepreneurship for kids.
"People my age drop their phones" is a problem. "Phone grips" is a product.
Practise them out loud with you first.
Your child listens more than they talk and writes down what each person says.
Count the answers, then fill in:
"I spoke to ___ people. ___ had this problem. The most common frustration was ___. So next I will ___."
For example, a boy planning phone grips finds only one person drops their phone, but four complain about tangled earphones, so he changes his idea before spending anything. This is an illustrative example, not a JuniorCEO Lab student case study.
In the classroom: students write questions in one lesson, interview classmates in pairs, then tally results together in a second lesson.
You choose who is safe to talk to and stay nearby. The questions and conclusions belong to your child. Start with people your family knows, record first names only, and run anything online yourself, as Australia's social media age restrictions stop many platforms giving under-16s accounts.
Researching customers is the second stage of the JuniorCEO Lab program, after exploring products and before shaping an idea. Children test their assumptions with real people before spending anything.
Asking friends collects opinions, and friends tend to be kind. Market research asks what people have actually done about a problem, which is a far better guide to what they will do.
Treat it as a reason to dig deeper. Ask about the last time they had the problem and whether they spent anything to fix it. Vague answers usually mean politeness.
That is successful research. Your child saved time and money. Look back at the notes together, because people often mention a different problem worth solving.
Yes, with a parent running it. Share a short survey with your own contacts or read product reviews together. Avoid public posts and don't collect personal details.
This week, ask your child to finish: "The problem I want to solve is ___." Once they have tallied their answers, our guide to how kids turn a problem into a product idea shows the next step.
Su Stanyer is the founder of JuniorCEO Lab, an Australian program that teaches children aged 10 to 13 how a business works, from exploring products and researching customers to branding, money, marketing and sales.
Government and curriculum references are general information and do not imply endorsement of JuniorCEO Lab.
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