how does one go about doing market research when they are starting a new company?

I'm starting a web design firm and we're trying to research the market in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I don't really know where to go to get the statistics and the data about the market here. What resources are available? I am looking for stats like how many start up companies are there per year in the SF bay area? how frequently do businesses redesign their websites? how many web design firms are there in the bay area? that sort of thing....any suggestions?Dwight DJ has some good points (see up). You can also do some primary data research by conducting your own surveys, questionaires and focus group. Or you can pretend to be a student and visit existing firms and pretend that you are doing a huge huge project that will decide whether you graduate or not and start digging in questions like the data that they use for their market research and who their sources were, and other data that you need. Or go to the local university or college design/computing/business department and ask whether they know a thing or two. btw, are you hiring? lol small business administration, chambers of commerce, local business directories of similar businesses dear there Marketing art is innovative ideas......and the mainly two things u must care 1-Customer service 2- maximize profit innovate in these two v important things

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How does one get to be a ';mystery shopper';?

I was wondering if anyone has ever been or known of anyone else that is a ';mystery shopper'; - a person that goes into stores/restaurants posing as an everyday customer - to evaluate the customer service? If so, how did you/they get that job? Any numbers or people I could talk to would be a great help.



I have also seen sights online offering ';information'; if you pay a one time fee of $19.95 - I am NOT interested in doing that.

Serious answers only plz.

How does newspaper get all around the country in a lil bit of time?

Like the NY times how do they get it all over the place before sunrise on sunday and other days?