BIZWIZ

Market Research for SMEs, made easier

Applicants: Logan Yoon, Tom Choi, Jiwon Moon, Jun Huh, David Jung
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Table of Contents
I. Executive Summary

II. Problem Identification

III. Product Description

A. SME-side Features
B. User-side Features

IV. Industry Analysis & Market Description

A. The Rise in Platform Businesses

B. The SME Landscape - Why BizWiz?
C. Competitors & Key Differentiators
1. SurveyMonkey
2. Facebook Marketing
3. Embrain
V. Management & Organization

VI. Marketing Strategy

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I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

BizWiz is a multi-sided platform (MSP) made for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Through our platform, SMEs will have easy access to a broad set of consumer data to better understand and
analyze their target demographic and aid in price determination. This will be done by providing a survey
platform that allows SMEs to register their product/service along with a customized survey of their own
construction, after which they will be connected with users who will respond to these surveys. Although
filling in bubbles and checkboxes is nothing new, BizWiz will revolutionize the formula with novel and
engaging surveying methods and other features that will forge stronger bonds between SMEs and consumers.
There will also be a user incentivization system in place, where users are awarded points for each survey
response that can be converted to a wide array of gifts, which will make sure BizWiz establishes a firm user
base while also making sure the responses are authentic. Through these services BizWiz plans to contribute
to the future growth of a broad and robust SME ecosystem.

 
II. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

Under today’s rapidly changing market trends, comprehending the consumer has become a struggle
for firms of all sizes, ranging from SMEs to large and well-established corporations. Consumers today are
exposed to so many different media platforms and resources, making their tastes and preferences more
dynamic than ever. This trend is particularly problematic for SMEs as startups lack the institutional and
financial capabilities to receive meaningful and insightful responses from customers. The inability of SMEs to
attain sufficient demographic data has resulted in three crucial problems:

1) SMEs lack appropriate tools or resources to access mass market information.

2) Insufficient access to data makes SMEs (especially service-oriented businesses) increasingly
concerned about catering their products to an apposite customer base.
3) It is time-consuming and challenging for SMEs to conduct accurate in-depth consumer and market
analysis.

These concerns will be further elaborated on in the Industry Analysis & Market Description section.

 
III. PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

BizWiz is an MSP that connects SMEs with users around South Korea. The platform will therefore
offer different features for consumers and businesses. Here is a rundown of both sides of the platform:

 
A. SME-side Features

SMEs will be charged a joining fee as well as an additional fee for posting products on the site. This
additional fee will scale with the size of the plan they choose, which determines the maximum number of user
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responses they can receive. While registering a product/service, SMEs will be able to add information like the
product's image, features, and description, and construct a survey.

Throughout the survey construction process, the platform offers firms different types of questions to
choose from. Each question is specifically tailored to the following categories: name of the product, design,
price, performance, convenience/practicality, and satisfaction. This list will continue to be expanded on in the
future with constructive feedback from our clientele. Aside from implementing simple multiple choice or
open-ended questions, each category will have its own survey template exclusive to BizWiz, which allows the
surveys to be quick and engaging for the users, our unique selling point as a survey platform. Once all of the
required information is filled in, the product’s page will be made available for the public to see, with certain
demographics targeted for better exposure. After user responses are collected, the website will provide
analytics of the responses, and those analytics will be presented in useful and digestible visualizations. These
analytics will be useful for businesses in their marketing, pricing, or production decisions. All surveys posted
will expire after a set time period passes. By paying for a premium subscription, SMEs will have access to
additional useful data features, discounts on posting products, and priority listing on the main page and
search results.

 
B. User-side Features

On the user side of the platform, people will be able to view company posts either through search, the
trending section, or by viewing certain categories. Upon clicking on a product or service they are interested
in, users will be able to view information that the firm has put up. Our website also possesses a user
verification step before users fill out the surveys that would mitigate the impact of fake profiles or falsified
data in creating inaccurate demographic information. The unprecedented efficiency and interactivity offered
by these surveys will reduce hesitation consumers may feel from seeing a sprawling page of questions to
scroll down. Once the user has filled out a survey, that user will gain a set amount of points that scales with
the length of the survey. Users will then be able to reimburse their points accumulated for rewards like
gift-cards and coupons in the Wiz shop. Once we establish a presence with our website, BizWiz will also
coordinate co-marketing with SMEs by allowing these companies to offer their products as promotional
rewards. This will add even more incentive for users, as their input could now make them eligible for
exclusive access to newly released products or services.

 
IV. INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & MARKET DESCRIPTION

 
A. The Rise in Platform Businesses

‘Platform business’ has become the key word for the global trend in today’s business world with
technology and globalization. Companies like Amazon, Uber, Facebook, and delivery apps like Delivery Hero
have become one of the largest transnational companies, outcompeting traditional strongholds in terms of
company valuation. The global customer data platform market is projected to attain a market value of 4,364.7
million USD by 2027 with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 24.5%, indicating the market for
platform businesses is a worthwhile one.​1​ However, there is one important thing to note: while there is an
oversaturation of the B2C platform business market, there is a conspicuously underserved niche for B2B
platforms. While platform businesses, until now, have concentrated in providing value for the public, there

1
Insights, Fortune Business. “Customer Data Platform Market to Reach USD 4,364.7 Million by 2027...” ​GlobeNewswire NewsRoom​,
"GlobeNewswire", 1 June 2020
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remains less focus on platforms that businesses could rely on and benefit from (except for Alibaba and a few
other global sourcing platforms). Considering the status quo, BizWiz believes that the global trend in the
business world will expand towards B2B platforms, especially with the usage of big data analytics and
machine learning of consumer data, which our service aims to pioneer. With this said, we will now move on to
the more specific description of our target market.

 
B. The SME Landscape - Why BizWiz?

In Korea’s top-down business environment, dominated by enormous “chaebol” conglomerates or

other large corporations, startups and SMEs face considerable obstacles in finding a niche in the market. The
issue presents itself as a massive predicament: Korea is mired in an environment that stifles innovation
before it could ever reach the consumer. Not only that, but even in markets yet saturated by large
corporations, startups and SMEs simply lack the realistic capabilities to conduct such extensive market
research as do large corporations, which poses a significant problem especially in such a big data-driven
business environment. BizWiz alleviates these problems by acting as the “database” for our clients in an
inexpensive and approachable manner.

The need for BizWiz was actually proven by real-life startups and SMEs. In an interest survey
conducted among startups from Incheon Startuppark, a startup accelerator located in Songdo, 64.5%
professed their willingness to use a BizWiz-like service if it existed among the 31 startups who responded.
Most of them expressed an immediate need for a more direct and streamlined approach to market analysis. It
is also important to note that a small portion of the startups who were uninterested in a BizWiz-like service
were B2B-based companies, and therefore irrelevant to our business model, which means that interest is
likely higher for B2C companies—not to mention that BizWiz can develop more features in the future catering
to B2B startup needs. Not only that, but Ohmyapp, a startup currently working on a no-code development
platform, indicated that this was the type of a service platform that they were currently looking for while
developing an app of their own, which actually how they became to develop our MVP.

 
C. Competitors & Key Differentiators

With SMEs facing difficulties in conducting market research, there has been an increase in demand
for online survey services that provide SMEs with greater insight on certain consumer profiles and
consumption patterns. The U.S online survey services industry has shown an average growth rate of 11.9%
from 2014 to 2019 with the market size held at a value of $1 billion and 417 businesses operating within this
industry.​2

Conventional startup-supporting business models are primarily based on two areas: crowdfunding,
which is employed by startups for financial support, and product sharing and discovery, which startups use
for advertisement. However, BizWiz acts instead as a “database” to startups that face limited accessibility to
demographic and market-based information while also facilitating product sharing and advertisement. Apart
from businesses that primarily focus on supporting startups, existing competitors most similar to BizWiz are
firms engaged within the survey-sharing industry, marketing tool industry, and the more generalized survey
platform industry.

As opposed to existing survey-conductible websites in which all surveys are fragmented, BizWiz is a
multi-sided platform that collects those individual surveys (apposite to those for market analysis) into a

2
“Industry Market Research, Reports, and Statistics.” ​IBISWorld,​
www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/online-survey-software-united-states/.
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single platform. This creates three key differentiators between BizWiz and its competitors: ​specialization,
user-friendliness​, and ​diversity​.

Below are three notable existing competitors.

1.  
SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a prevailing business within the online survey services market gathering
roughly 2.5 million respondents per day from 190 countries and territories.​3​ Any company or
individual can make a free survey using the survey construction options provided by the platform
then share it via links, email, websites, or social media. The construction options offered by
SurveyMonkey include multiple choice bubbles, checkboxes, dropdown lists, and textboxes. The
service is free to use for both individuals and businesses, and provides features and functionalities
catering to both. A subscription-based fee can give users access to more quality-of-life features.

BizWiz will establish a distinction from SurveyMonkey through the above mentioned
differentiators. Here is our SWOT analysis.

- Specialization: SurveyMonkey benefits from a high degree of flexibility by allowing its surveys to be
applied to a variety of different services including market research. However, this means that the
surveying methods it offers are limited in terms of data-gathering methods. BizWiz will be dedicated
entirely to market research, creating features and data-gathering methods more suited to SMEs and
their specific needs(including the employment of big data). As an MSP, it will also be able to dedicate
more toward making the business-consumer communication process as seamless as possible.

- Convenience: The above-mentioned specialization also means the processes behind creating and
answering surveys on BizWiz are going to be more streamlined in comparison to SurveyMonkey.
Furthermore, users who fill out surveys will be compensated in a way that respects the time
investments they make.

- Diversity: Business models such as SurveyMonkey only provide firms with the opportunity to collect
limited amounts of demographic information as individuals need to be contacted separately with the
surveys. BizWiz, on the other hand, can have a wider reach by establishing a broader and more
diverse network of users.

2.  
Facebook Marketing

Another potential competitor to BizWiz is Facebook Marketing. Facebook Marketing is a

platform that provides various highly targeted paid advertisements and organic posts to help firms’
products and services attain greater exposure. Facebook employs a digital marketing approach in
which there are diverse marketing channels for firms to communicate with a massive audience.
Facebook currently has a global coverage of over approximately 1.5 billion users who visit the
platform on a regular basis with over 7 million companies active on Facebook Marketing to attain
greater public exposure through their advertisements.​4​ The features available in this marketing
platform allow firms to tailor their promotions to a specific target market based on the demographic
or consumer behavioral data used by Facebook. The platform enables integrations with other

3
“The World's Most Popular Free Online Survey Tool.” ​SurveyMonkey​, www.surveymonkey.com/?ut_source=homepage.
4
“18 Facebook Statistics Every Marketer Should Know in 2020.” ​Sprout Social,​ 8 Sept. 2020,
sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-stats-for-marketers/.
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marketing channels such as email marketing, mobile marketing, search engine marketing, etc. to
develop a promotion mix that helps firms increase their brand outreach.

Here are distinctions BizWiz will make from Facebook Marketing:

- Specialization: This type of specialization, for BizWiz, will present us as a platform that creates a
sustainable business ecosystem among users, that both enhances our brand image and gives us a
competitive edge over Facebook Marketing. BizWiz’s specialization as an MSP will give firms access
to on-site survey-making tools and more in-depth analysis in areas better suited to SMEs looking to
reach out to their local communities.

- Convenience: Like with SurveyMonkey, BizWiz will provide more engaging and streamlined services
for firms to use.

- Diversity: Facebook is, unfortunately, unparalleled in the extensiveness of its platform. However,
Facebook Marketing’s reach may come at the cost of the quality of the survey responses. As the
barriers to entry for users regarding the submission of responses are relatively low, users can easily
create multiple accounts to gain the response incentives provided by the firm in a way that distorts
the quality of the demographic data obtained. BizWiz sports an extensive user-verification system
required for all users to complete when creating their account. This will ensure only real people are
represented in the data provided.

3.  Embrain

Our final competitor which has a similar business model with BizWiz is Embrain, a company
owned by Macromill Group. Macromill Group is a global marketing research and digital marketing
solutions provider that has achieved rapid growth in recent years. Through the collective power of its
specialist companies, the firm provides innovative data to help its clients conduct research more
efficiently.​5​ Among the different branches Macromill has ownership of, Macromill Embrain remains
as the market leader among online research agencies with the largest consumer panel in Asia, with
access to a total panel size of 819,881 survey panelists within Korea as of November 2020.​6​ Users
receive incentives at a minimum of 2,500 KRW per week by simply providing their personal
information and opinions.

Although Embrain’s business model may seem identical to BizWiz, our platform also offers
key benefits in comparison:

- Convenience: The number of surveys that can be completed by users are limited, limiting the amount
of data available to firms, while BizWiz will reduce these restrictions. With the analysis conducted on
BizWiz’s cost structure, BizWiz will also be at least 2 times more profitable than Embrain, rewarding
users more handsomely for their time investments.

- Specialization: Finally, Embrain merely presents itself as a ‘survey platform that provides users
rewards for filling out surveys’. BizWiz is something more than that. Our primary focus lies in
supporting SMEs by creating a sustainable startup ecosystem for them to operate in, laying the
foundation for a more distinctive corporate identity. Once BizWiz’s presence is firmly established

5
​Macromill Group​, group.macromill.com/solutions.html.
6
​EMBRAIN,​ www.embrain.com/eng/intro/intro1.asp.
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within the market, BizWiz will also coordinate partnerships with SMEs to offer rewards including
product prototypes and opportunities for early access to newly-launched products.

- Diversity: Like the other marketing tool platforms mentioned above, Embrain lacks the engaging user
experience that BizWiz will provide that could garner a broader audience. Furthermore, the firm
lacks a strong marketing presence, which BizWiz can take advantage of to establish a larger
prominence with the public.

 
V. MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION

We are a team of 4 seniors and one sophomore attending Chadwick International School, Songdo. We
have all either lived in the United States or spoken English for most of our academic careers. We have taken
part and placed in multiple different nation-wide business competitions like the Korea Business Competition
and the Business Black Box, and are currently leading the school’s Business Club in giving rising
entrepreneurs the skills and experiences they need. These business competitions involve teams of high school
students planning a business plan in response to a prompt, justifying that plan with sufficient research, and
planning out a viable plan of execution for that plan that is then presented in front of representatives from
companies sponsoring each competition. Over multiple years, these competitions have taught us how to think
strategically, present ideas convincingly, and make informed plans.

Walking the long winding path to success, we will never lose the spring in our step. I​ n other words, no
matter what obstacles or challenges lie ahead for us, we will continue with perseverance without being easily
discouraged. The statement also means we won’t be afraid to take risks in reaching our goals. Every decision
we make will have our full confidence, and we will continue to push forward without hesitation or indecision.
No matter what happens, we plan to stand by our key decisions and are ready to take full accountability for
the consequences that may follow. Finally, this philosophy also entails our open-mindedness to new
possibilities. We give all ideas, no matter how far-fetched, our undivided attention and

Chadwick International has provided us with a variety of resources and connections that have helped
us in developing our concept, and can be relied on to continue to do so. Such resources include help from
knowledgeable teachers and administrators, connections available from the growing community of students
and faculty of all ages and nationalities. The school’s director of admissions Mr. Soleiman Dias has a broad
correspondence that helped us get in touch with consultants, and is ready to continue to provide his help. His
extensive knowledge of people in the community and his ties with the municipal government of Songdo will
also help us reach out to our target audience of local SMEs.  

So far, our team’s correspondence has involved:

Mr. Wang Soo Yong​, the CEO of a battery sharing company called Aing (아잉) and a former software
engineer, who provided us guidance on website development and beginning a platform-based
startup company.

Mr. Han Young Cho​ from Maersk, who provided us feedback on our concept draft and provided us
tools to strengthen the design of our startup.

Ms. Neeti Virmani​ from the Songdo Foreign Advisory Board, who is also currently working on a local
startup product. She provided us further guidance in implementing our idea, advising us to develop
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our marketing strategy and develop key points of differentiation for our product. She has also offered
to provide us with connections to local firms to kickstart the plan.

Ohmyapp​ from D-camp, a startup company themselves, currently developing a website developing
platform that enables users to create their own website without coding (also referred to as a no-code
platform). BizWiz has made a partnership with this company as Ohmyapp has agreed to develop our
platform with the technology they possess.

Thanks to the help and advice we have received from our various contributors, we have been able to
plan a viable plan with a clear vision for development and potential future growth. We have a long-term plan
for BizWiz that will involve our continued collaboration during and potentially even after university.

 
VI. MARKETING STRATEGY

The average consumer’s attention span has decreased throughout the past decade and is currently
estimated to be at eight seconds. With shorter attention spans and more distractions prevalent within Korea’s
contemporary society, the adoption of the “micro-survey” approach by BizWiz will accommodate for this
change. The rule of “eight seconds” lays the groundwork for BizWiz’s marketing strategy. The survey
questions featured on our business model won’t exceed the average consumer response rate of eight seconds
and will revolve around the seven concepts BizWiz considers crucial to the success of a company: Name of
Product, Design, Price, Performance, Practicality/Convenience, Satisfaction and a Hexagon Test.

A single survey will take approximately 56 seconds to complete and the short, yet comprehensive
questions asked will provide more valuable demographic insights into the Korean population and encourage
higher levels of participation from respondents.

The minimum wage is currently held at 8590 KRW per hour and with the completion of 15 surveys,
BizWiz’s survey respondents will obtain incentives equivalent to the minimum wage within only 14 minutes
(as 15 surveys take 840 seconds). As for the firms, BizWiz will provide them with free surveys for the first
100 responses as this remains to be the rule of thumb based on statistics.

Another marketing strategy we plan to pursue involves the implementation of the “Founders
Program”. Through this exclusive invitation system, we hope to boost interest and embed entrepreneurship
within the Chadwick community. The school’s extensive network of people and its firm relationship with the
municipal government will allow the business to flourish regionally in Songdo. This initiative will allow the
business to attain a potential consumer base of 1,000 members and develop a prestige insider community. To
assure the success of the business within this area of interest, we will be providing incentives and work
towards building concrete relationships with the members of the Chadwick community. After solidifying our
position at a local level, we plan to utilize our presence to expand towards other international school
communities within Korea, as well as towards the general population as a whole. As for our expansion
strategy, the employment of social media platforms and YouTube marketing will help advertise our presence
to the domestic market at a wider scale. Along with this, we plan on visiting startup parks and attending
networking events to directly inform startups of our business model through the word-of-mouth marketing.