[giantg2]

If it's really that small of a startup, then they probably aren't looking for something super official. They probably want to see some numbers you came up with to confirm your own idea.

I've looked up stats about markets when I thought I had a good idea. Just knowing how many potential customers you might have, what competitors are out there (including patents), and cost of existing products can give you a theoretical max revenue and estimated max product price.

Oftentimes this is enough to rule out an idea. By discovering the market is too small, or existing products are too cheap to compete with. Sure there are other things to consider like how mobile the customers are, regulations, growing markets, etc. Those will require more research. If your investor is considering putting in a lot of money I would hope they do their own in depth analysis.

[andrea81]

Thank you for your reply. Although I do believe that even a patent search is demanding (at least I've seen companies already offering the service), it is a good advice.

[giantg2]

I've done my own preliminary patent searches to see what is out there. I've had multiple ideas that were not on the market but turned out to be patented. There are tutorials on how to do them.