Describe your audience and research decision. Makeform creates an editable survey covering business stage, challenges, motivations, resource gaps, and preferred support, with relevant paths for different founders.
Send responses to Google Sheets, Slack, and Zapier.
Sample prompts for the survey builder
Choose a research angle, adapt its prompt, and revise the generated structure before publishing.
Audience
Current and prospective accelerator founders
Format
Segmented needs survey with ranked priorities
Prompt size
362 chars
Example survey structure
Segmented needs survey with ranked priorities
What stage best describes your business?
Rank your three biggest current challenges
Which support formats would you use?
What outcome matters most in the next six months?
May we contact you about a follow-up interview?
Suggested analysis tags
Early-stage founders
Growth constraints
Support requests
Ask respondents to choose their top three challenges before requesting detail; prioritization distinguishes urgent needs from familiar concerns.
Step 1
Define
audience, decision, and research window
Step 2
Segment
stage, sector, team, and geography
Step 3
Prioritize
challenges, motivations, and needed support
Step 4
Act
analyze themes and plan the next response
Research that leads somewhere
Distinguish who is responding, what blocks progress, and which program, message, or interview should come next.
Ask stage and team size early, then branch. A founder validating demand does not need a hiring section for growing teams.
Combine a challenge checklist, top-three ranking, and focused follow-up to separate common concerns from current priorities.
Follow structured choices with one open question that captures the language and context predefined options miss.
Four practical research briefs
Choose a clear use case before selecting fields or response scales.
Map stage-specific obstacles to mentoring, workshops, introductions, and scheduling preferences.
Compare motivations, constraints, resources, and confidence without unnecessary identity details.
Rank topics, formats, and unanswered questions around founder interests.
Repeat stable questions quarterly and track emerging local resource gaps.
Survey workflow
Review wording, routing, and analysis before sharing.
State who will respond, what findings will change, which segments you will compare, and the target length.
Use recognizable stage, sector, and challenge choices, with an Other option where needed.
Show funding, hiring, or program details only when the respondent's selections make them relevant.
Try several founder paths and map each question to a comparison, theme, priority, or action.
Question design choices
Mix structured and open responses.
Field guide
Cover founder context, pressures, and support.
Founder context
Ask only for attributes you plan to compare; broad bands can replace exact financial or personal details.
Business position
Capture the near-term objective before assessing stage-specific barriers.
Challenges
Use a recognizable list, require prioritization, then explore the top issue in context.
Motivations
Separate the original reason for starting from the outcome that matters now.
Resources and support
Test specific formats, access barriers, timing, and topics so needs can inform a realistic response.
Follow-up
End with a focused open question and separate optional contact form when anonymity matters.
Related tools
Extend the project into adjacent research.
Study audience context, alternatives, and market needs.
Open toolExplore customer problems, workarounds, urgency, and interview interest.
Open toolCompare alternatives, selection factors, strengths, and unmet expectations.
Open toolCollect use cases, criteria, priorities, and product feedback.
Open toolSegment audiences by context, goals, behavior, and obstacles.
Open toolAsk about discovery, evaluation, purchase habits, and influences.
Open toolFAQ
Answers for teams designing founder research.
It is a questionnaire for founders, owners, or self-employed people about business context, challenges, motivations, resources, and support needs. Begin with a specific decision, such as choosing accelerator workshops or planning founder content.
Ask stage, sector, team size, and the next goal. Prioritize current challenges, then explore severity and attempted solutions. Add motivations, resources, preferred support, and one open need.
Match length to the decision. A pulse can use a few stable measures; a needs assessment may require branching. Remove questions without an analysis use and test every founder path.
Ask stage with plain descriptions, then branch to relevant topics. Keep a small core of identical measures across paths so validation-stage and operating businesses remain comparable.
Yes. Avoid required names, companies, and emails, and use broad business bands. Send interview volunteers to a separate contact form so their details are not attached to the research response.
Use neutral wording and balanced scales. Do not assume founders raised funding, employ staff, or want rapid growth. Include Not applicable where appropriate and test the wording with different readers.
Yes. Makeform is unlimited free for generating, editing, publishing, and collecting responses. The paid tier removes the Makeform badge. Revise options and routing before publishing.
Segment by stage, summarize rankings and scales, and code open answers into themes. Connect each finding to a program, interview, content decision, or experiment.
Hear what founders need.
