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Market Research

SMB Fintech Pain Points & Priorities Assessment

Identifies operational challenges across cash flow, marketing, hiring, and software tools among small business owners and freelancers to inform fintech product strategy and feature prioritization.

Sample questions

A preview of what’s in the template. Every question is editable before you launch.

21 questions · ~10 min
Q01
Message

Welcome! This survey explores the challenges that professionals and small business owners face in areas like cash flow, marketing, hiring, and software tools. Your participation is entirely voluntary, and you may stop at any time. There are no right or wrong answers — we are interested in your honest opinions and experiences. All responses are confidential and will be reported only in aggregate. The survey takes approximately 8–10 minutes to complete. Thank you for your time!

Q02
Dropdown

Which best describes your current work situation?

  • Self-employed or freelancer
  • Owner/partner of a small business (1–50 employees)
  • Employee at a small business (1–50 employees)
  • Employee at a medium or large company (51+ employees)
  • Student
  • Not working currently
  • Other
Q03
Opinion Scale

How much of a challenge is managing cash flow or finances for you right now?

Scale: 15
Min:Not at all challengingMax:Extremely challenging
Q04
Ranking

Thinking about the past month, rank the following by how much of your work time you spent on each area (1 = most time).

  1. Finances/cash flow
  2. Marketing/growth
  3. Hiring/contracting
  4. Software/tools
  5. Operations/admin
Drag to rank
Q05
Long Text

Based on your responses throughout this survey, is there anything else you would like to share about the challenges you face with finances, marketing, hiring, or software tools?

Q06
Dropdown

Where are you primarily based?

  • North America
  • Europe
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Latin America
  • Middle East/Africa
  • Prefer not to say
Q07
Message

Thank you for completing this survey — your input is greatly appreciated! Your responses will be used in aggregate to improve products and services for professionals and small business owners like you.

Q08
Multiple Choice

Which of the following areas do you personally handle or influence in your work? Select all that apply.

  • I manage cash flow or finances
  • I work on marketing or growth
  • I handle hiring or contractors
  • I choose or manage software/tools
  • None of the above
Q09
Opinion Scale

How much of a challenge is marketing and growth for you right now?

Scale: 15
Min:Not at all challengingMax:Extremely challenging
Q10
Ranking

Rank the following outcomes by how helpful each would be for you right now (1 = most helpful).

  1. Improve cash predictability
  2. Get more qualified leads
  3. Hire or contract faster
  4. Reduce software/tooling costs
  5. Automate routine financial and admin tasks
Drag to rank
Q11
Dropdown

What is your age group?

  • 18–24
  • 25–34
  • 35–44
  • 45–54
  • 55–64
  • 65+
  • Prefer not to say
Q12
Multiple Choice

Which, if any, of the following do you use at least once a week? Select all that apply.

  • Mobile banking app
  • Budgeting app (e.g., Mint, YNAB)
  • Payment app (e.g., PayPal, Venmo, Cash App)
  • Investing app (e.g., Robinhood, eToro)
  • Credit monitoring app
  • Buy Now, Pay Later service
  • Crypto wallet or exchange app
  • None of these
Q13
Opinion Scale

How much of a challenge is hiring or managing contractors for you right now?

Scale: 15
Min:Not at all challengingMax:Extremely challenging
Q14
Dropdown

How do you describe your gender?

  • Male
  • Female
  • Non-binary
  • Prefer to self-describe
  • Prefer not to say
Q15
Opinion Scale

How much of a challenge is managing software and tools for you right now?

Scale: 15
Min:Not at all challengingMax:Extremely challenging
Q16
Dropdown

What is the highest level of education you have completed?

  • High school or less
  • Some college or vocational
  • Bachelor's degree
  • Graduate/professional degree
  • Other
  • Prefer not to say
Q17
Dropdown

Which one area is your single biggest challenge right now?

  • Cash flow/finances
  • Marketing and growth
  • Hiring/contracting
  • Software/tools
  • None — I don't face a major challenge in these areas
Q18
Dropdown

Approximately how many people work at your company or organization?

  • Just me (solo)
  • 2–5
  • 6–10
  • 11–50
  • 51+
  • Not applicable
Q19
Multiple Choice

From the list below, which specific issues are most challenging for you right now? Select up to 5.

  • Unpredictable revenue timing
  • Late or missed customer payments
  • Limited visibility into cash runway or forecast
  • Limited access to credit or working capital
  • Too few qualified leads
  • Unclear channel attribution
  • Low conversion on website or app
  • Hard to find qualified candidates or contractors
  • Onboarding and paperwork take too long
  • Too many tools to manage
  • Tools that don't integrate well
  • Software subscriptions cost too much
Q20
Long Text

Thinking about the biggest challenge area you selected above, briefly describe a recent example and how it affected your work or business.

Q21
AI Interview

You mentioned your biggest challenge earlier. I'd like to explore that in a bit more depth. What have you tried so far to address it, and what has or hasn't worked?

What’s included

  • AI follow-ups

    Adaptive probes on open-ended answers that pull out detail a static form would miss.

  • Attention checks

    Built-in safeguards against rushed answers and low-quality respondents.

  • AI-drafted copy

    Wording, ordering, and branching written by the AI — tuned to your research goal.

  • Auto report

    Themes, quotes, and a plain-English summary write themselves once responses come in.

Why this template

What this template is built to do — we found no directly comparable template from other survey tools to review.

What sets it apart

  • Uses adaptive AI follow-up interviews to dig deeper into whichever pain point (cash flow, marketing, hiring, or software tools) a respondent flags as their biggest challenge, rather than stopping at a fixed question set
  • Combines quantitative severity ratings (opinion-scale questions on each of the four challenge areas) with ranking exercises on time allocation and desired outcomes, giving both breadth and priority data for feature-planning decisions
  • Includes open-text prompts paired with an AI interview probe on the respondent's self-identified top challenge, capturing depth of context that closed-ended competitor templates typically miss
  • Collects standard firmographic and demographic screening (work situation, company size, location, age, education) to allow segmentation of fintech product-strategy insights by respondent type

Ready to launch?

Open this template in the editor. Every part is yours to change before the first respondent sees it.

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