Working for someone else can make you rich but working for yourself can make you wealthy. Not just money, it is also extremely liberating to be your own boss. However, choosing what small business to start is where a lot of us get it wrong. There is a natural tendency to look at some of the most ‘sexy’ and ‘successful’ ideas out there and try to build something on those ideas. Be it fashion, modern retail or what have you.
‘Unsexy’ Ideas Can Be Your Window To Low To Little Competition – Translating To More Profits
The problem with ‘sexy’ ideas is that everyone is chasing them. More importantly, there are large incumbents who already make it difficult to compete with them on either buying power, marketing budgets and what not. So while, the category might look very large and not a zero sum game chances are that growing profitably is going to be struggle especially if you are starting out as a bootstrapped business
Instead, if you take a slightly different approach to your research you might uncover interesting opportunities that may not sound extremely big upfront but could have very little to low competiton thereby setting you for better likelihood for success. Take for instance, looking at the wilderness in Canada as a business opportunity more specifically the industrial and heavy machinery industry. Not as sexy as trying to start a fashion business in New York but you can always considering starting a swamp mats business and while limited to a small geography and segment, it could be a great profitable business because not a lot of people would be looking for it
It’s OK To Build A Business Around A ‘Unsexy’ Concept That Serves A Very Specific Niche Community
When thinking a new business idea, it doesn’t always have to the build something that a lot of people need or want. Infact, you can choose to start a new business idea that by design serves a very specific market. That way you can ensure that you don’t dilute or spread yourself too thin trying to build a product that works for everyone. Instead you can laser target a specific niche persona and build the best damn thing that serves their specific needs. For what it is worth, you could build the best hunting crossbows and ensure that while your target customer base will be relatively lower, you could build the best product for this community and extract more premiums than any other incumbents.
The reality is that starting a small business is hard, managing it and growing it profitability is even harder. So, instead of looking at the conventional insights like Total Addressable Market Size, Global Opportunity etc you might be better off looking at smaller segments that have a real pain and build something specifically for them. That could ensure better profit margins, lower COGS and if you can make it work for that smaller segment you can always then find newer segments to go after from there
