Why You Shouldn’t Choose The Hottest New Niche
By Anna Johnson on June 30th, 2008Starting a business? Wondering which hot, new niche to get into? Stop!
Seriously. While there’s no doubt that the market for a certain solution, product or service may be bigger or growing faster than various other markets, starting a business in a given niche purely because it’s hot is a recipe for failure.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely a fan of finding out what people are looking for and then delivering it to them. Ideally, in a way that’s both unique and better than everything else. But just because a given market looks promising doesn’t mean you have the talents, skills, knowledge and other resources necessary to succeed in that market. Or that you have a business model that will allow you to be profitable in that market. For example, the online diet market is hot… but can you cost-effectively reach that market in a meaningful way?
I’m not talking about the need for you to be an expert in a given field. Running a successful business based on providing a given solution doesn’t require you to be an expert in that solution – it requires you to be an expert in producing and marketing that solution.
And that’s what I’m getting at. Rather than jump into what’s “hot”, I urge you to take the time to work out whether you (as opposed to anyone else) can profitably reach and deliver an appealing product to the target market.
