This component is crucially mistaken by the founders who want to prove that there product or service will have customers so they want to put the same across to investors or to themselves by doing primary research.

First thing the founders need to understand is that the primary research is going to cost bit heavy on there pockets and also after the report given by the agency or company which has done the primary research will not guarantee that the success of the startup will be there.

Founders need to understand that primary research is done on a sample size of 75 to 150 people who are interviewed by the research companies, which give them goodies for the time spent by the individuals in answering the questions of these research agencies.

Founders need to understand that the research agency does the research in controlled environment and the individuals answering are also doing it in controlled environment and the results of these will have no impact on the success of your startup.

While writing business plan having secondary research to show case that the industry in which you are planning to start has scope and growth and market is well matured enough to take new player is good enough to understand.

Any research will not give key to success but it will give only availability of scope which should not taken as bench mark for projecting sales forecast and revenue projections

So the importance of research in business plan has limited role which gives clarity on the market and the industry, if your startup is in unique and has got no reference to any market reports either primary or secondary then the founder has to bench mark on what’s the minimum sales or revenue he has to generate in order to keep himself alive.