In this difficult economic times, a niche business can be a good thing to have. Recently spoke with some folks in Parowan Utah who have a thriving niche business selling certain horseshoeing supplies. It’s apparently a small niche, and they’ve filled it well. They don’t need to advertise, word of mouth does it for them.
DJ, who blogs here also lives in Utah and has started making goat and cow milk cheese. I’ve watched him start the business and it looks like it’s taking off. The cheese is delicious. It sells itself at farmer’s markets.
The key seems to be in providing a useful product or service that not many others offer. Then do it well. It doesn’t have to be a multi-zillion dollar business either.
I’ve got a tiny but thriving niche converting ancient DOS-based Clipper and Foxpro database programs to Windows. There are still millions of such applications out there, and I just got another one today, a Foxpro DOS app that has been running a good-sized importing business for 20 years now.
So, if you’re looking around for ways to make some money, maybe you could find a niche for yourself. Think small. There’s way less competition that way 🙂
I made a leather camera strap for myself 5 years ago and one of the members of Rangefinder Forum offered to buy one. I quickly put together a website (gordyscamerastraps.com) and it’s taken off. And, irony of ironies, my biggest customer is in Hong Kong. It seems the Chinese like quality goods not made in China. Who knew?
That’s fascinating. Find a niche and fill it, indeed. Even if you didn’t know the niche was there!
One thing I’ve noticed is that much of the time my FoxPro and Clipper clients don’t want the program interface changed. Sure, make it run in Windows and add some new features we need, they say, but don’t change the look and feel. We’ve used it that way for 20 years and see no need for change there. Interesting.
PS Gordon blogs at
http://www.electricedge.com/greymatter/