With the massive increase in the number of people with autism, the demand for autism detection and therapy is progressively increasing. To explore the market for autism detection and therapy, we designed a 12-question questionnaire to understand people's awareness and attitudes about autism. The questionnaire was distributed to different cities through WeChat and 776 respondents completed the survey.

The first four questions of the questionnaire were all basic information surveys of the people who completed the questionnaire. Among them, 52.32% were male, 47.29% were female and 0.39% were others. This indicates that the distribution of the number of males and females is very close and successfully verified the breadth and uniformity of the results received by the questionnaire.The first four questions of the questionnaire were all basic information surveys of the people who completed the questionnaire. Among them, 52.32% were male, 47.29% were female and 0.39% were others. This indicates that the distribution of the number of males and females is very close and successfully verified the breadth and uniformity of the results received by the questionnaire.

The age distribution of respondents ranged from 0 to over 66 years old. Most of the people who filled out the questionnaire were concentrated in high school, and the distribution of secondary school, university college, and bachelor's degree were also relatively balanced, indicating that the people who filled out the questionnaire have certain education and knowledge reserves.

Next, based on this monthly household income, we can find that most people have a household income of 5001-10,000 CNY, which might indicate that they are in good living conditions and these respondents could be assumed to afford to treat their autistic children if they have.

To investigate the case situation of autism among our respondents, we asked the interviewees if they have suffered or have met someone with autism around them. Based on the result, 29.25% of people claimed they have met autism patients around them, 47.42% of people claimed no, and 23.32% of people are not sure. This result indicates that there are still many people not aware of autism not to mention the ability to tell if someone suffers from autism or not. Therefore, it is necessary to start related education campaigns to increase public awareness about autism, and our proposed final product to detect autism is also demanded.

To further investigate how much the general public know about autism, we set 5 levels in our question. Based on the result below, 4.64% were very unaware of autism, 45.88% had heard of the term autism, 42.4% were relatively aware of the symptoms of autism, 5.54% were very aware and had been exposed to the typical symptoms of autism, and 1.55% were very aware and had a friend or family member with autism.

In addition to the last question, when we asked the public whether they think autism can be cured or not. As seen below, most people believe that autism can be cured. But actually, the treatment of autism is quite complicated, seemly the general public takes a positive attitude to autism therapy but we believe that this result also reminds us of increasing public awareness about autism to ensure they could have a more comprehensive recognition of autism.

Above all, due to the lack of understanding of autism and lack of enough attention from society, most people are unable to identify autism. Therefore, we can confirm our main tasks will not only include developing a detection or treatment for autism but also increasing public awareness about autism.

While developing our products, it is very important to position our market and understand audience characteristics and interests to better analyze and sell our products. We use random street investigation to obtain social background information, and understand the demand for our products and people's opinions to better optimize our products.

We interviewed 36 parents in total, with the age distribution mainly above 30 years old. There was also a very wide range of educational attainment among them, from elementary, middle, and high school to undergraduate students. We first asked whether they were concerned about their child's mental and psychological health. However, the results were very different, as about 10% of the parents were very concerned about their child's psychological and mental health, and even took their child for various detections when their child showed only very minor related symptoms. This group of parents explained that they had experiences with related conditions, such as depression, so they took such conditions seriously. However, 90% of parents do not take their children for autism detection and treatment unless the child expresses very severe symptoms. We have understood that this is also since the autism tests currently on the market are not accurate enough and very expensive, with limitations on the age of the detection.
Then we investigated whether people are willing to buy such products as autism detection kits. More than 90% of parents thought it was a very good program because of the low risk of testing, low price, and high accuracy rate. If this type of program made it to the market, they believe that there will be a very large number of parents who will bring their children for the detection of autism.
Unfortunately, parents have had mixed reviews about our complementary probiotic drink. Some parents feel that they are more than willing to use our probiotic drink for their child since there are only a few side effects and they do not need to worry about whether their child will take the medication because the probiotic drink also tastes better. But the prerequisite for the above is that their child must have been diagnosed with autism, as they are not willing to spend more money to buy such products. Parents believe that instead, many young people may buy such drinks with the intention of helping children with autism. In addition, some parents are conservative and are reluctant to buy such drinks because they believe that since autism is a disease that requires medication, a complementary treatment drink does not sound effective, even though the principle behind it is valid. Moreover, our product would be distrustful as it is a new product. That's why promotion has become a very important step in selling the product.
The above investigations show that our team's study has unlimited prospects for future development. We hope that with our efforts, autism can be accurately detected and treated. We believe that soon, our product will be accepted by more people and thus help more people with autism.

We conducted an online interview with Doctor Li, the chief physician of Anshan Mental Health Center. Through our conversation, we learned about the pathology of autism and the current methods to detect and treat autism. Doctor Li affirmed the innovation and feasibility of our project but also pointed out that we will face some strong competitors in the market. In conclusion, we learned a lot from Doctor Li's clinical experience and professional insight.

Doctor Li explained that, the causative factors of autism are related to many biological factors. These include most notably genetic inheritance factors, maternal immune deficiency factors, and to a lesser extent, peripheral environmental triggers. These factors lead to neurodevelopmental disorders that ultimately result in autism.
Regarding current solutions to detect and treat autism, Doctor Li mentioned, in terms of diagnosis, most of the means are based on the analysis of abnormal behaviors of the child to diagnose autism. However, the symptoms of autism are diverse and there are no very accurate quantitative criteria, so it can be costly to achieve a highly accurate diagnosis. For example, there are existing brain mapping devices that can diagnose autism through behavioral testing. This instrument has a promising 85% correct diagnosis rate. MRI scanning technology is also available in the UK, and for adults, the results can be detected in 15 minutes. It is said that the correct rate can be as high as 90%. However, she also reminded us that, the common drawbacks of the brain mapping instrument and MRI scanning are that they are expensive and not portable, and cannot be fully popularized. In contrast, the autism test we developed is inexpensive and accurate and can be used universally with an accuracy rate of over 90%. In the end, Doctor Li also encouraged us to continue our research and she thinks our products with great potential and unlimited prospects.

We managed to interview with Mr. Zhang Andong, chief of COSCO Healthcare Industry. We learned from him about the difference in market entry thresholds for food, health care products, and versus pharmaceuticals. He provided us with many practical advice on our business plan and a clear image about the market.

Combined with the characteristics of our developed products and our discussion with Mr. Anthoney, we finally positioned the probiotic drink as a health product and autism detection kit. Through this product positioning, we adjusted the orientation of our business plan writing.
Mr. Zhang Andong also introduced us to the research and market production progress of various products on autism detection and treatment. He mentioned that autism-related products account for more than 30 billion in the world (about 5,000 yuan per person per year) which actually is very large. Compared to other medical devices and drugs, autism-related products might require higher ethical regulations before being implemented into the market. In the legal aspect, our detection kits he mentioned will belong to medical devices which means we must have a security license and focus on production compliance. He also provided valuable advice on the market research part of our business plan that we could apply the SWOT model or Porter's Five Forces Model.
The interview with Mr. Anthony gave us a deeper knowledge of the frontiers in the autism relative market so that we could analyze the market competition, stakeholders, etc. more rationally when writing our business plan.

Prof. Wen first introduced us to the project of suppressing autism researched by Professor Liu Xingyin from Nanjing Medical University which he knew about. He claimed that Professor Liu intended to use intestinal flora to suppress autism, and his research was so mature that it invested at least 10 million RMB. At the same time, the principle of our probiotic drink is very similar to the principle of Professor Liu's intestinal flora project, which shows the prospect of the product we developed. Moreover, Prof. Wen indicated that the market has always recognized the significance of treating autism and our project probably could attract many investment.

By comparing with the existing autism testing products on the market, Prof. Wen brought up our advantage, which is the detection accuracy: the existing testing methods are basically behavioral and thought analyses which are variable, so the existing testing means are not rigorous enough. Admittedly, he pointed out that there are still some flaws in our product design, such as nowadays experts and scholars in this area have not reached a final consensus on the degree of abnormality of the elements in the body of autism, thus causing a risk to our product development before being impeded. But, in the meantime, he added that breaking the bottleneck is also a stepping stone to success, plus our product is based on chemical elements to objectively diagnose autism with high accuracy and large space for future optimization.
Moreover, Prof. Wen mentioned that China's biomedical industry chain and microbial medical manufacturing technology are very advanced. Nevertheless, it has to be said that the research on biosensors lags far behind other countries. But as long as China insists on experimenting and accumulating experience, there will be great progress too, much less the strength of China's biomedical industry chain is also very powerful. At this stage, we could take the advantage of valuable resources in China to proceed with our project.