If I want to start a new business, what surveys other than a market analysis must be conducted?If I want to start a new product...Apart from...

Well, potential market is more than just who will buy your
product. Recently a very popular show on BBC called the Dragon's Den gave very good
information as to how they choose which products they (big, rich, entrepeneurs), would
finance, and which they would not.

Basically it came down
to the following:

Cost of manufacturing the product versus
final price of the product.

Cost of marketing the product
to a GENERAL audience versus cost of marketing to a specific group of
users.

Ease of production (who wants a product that takes
10,000 steps to make)

Nature of the production (is your
product going to contain lead, asbestus, plutonium? You have to be careful with to what
you will expose factory workers.

Where will the product be
in the next 5 years, and how can it be perfected? In other words, are you about to
create a white elephant and something that will be obsolete within a
year?

What is the ease of use of your product? Customers
want quick and easy.

What is the competitor product that
may challenge yours and make you look better or
worse.

Therefore, research, research, and research A LOT.
There is much more to business ventures than a dream and a vision. That is why 75% of
them fail the first year. Just look into what the big guns have done in the past, and
follow their example.