Niche markets and Gordon's Three Truths....
 

> Truth one. Products are a dime a dozen. BUT,
> the right product marketed to the right
> people at the right TIME, can make you a
> fortune.

> Truth TWO. In most businesses, it takes MONEY
> to make money, or it takes SELLING.

> Truth Three. Most people hate to sell and
> don't have the money either.

Hi Gordon,

Thanks for these three truths!

I agree especially with Truth Two.... As Jim Straw says, the one thing any business has to do is to sell something to someone. Or if you can afford it, hire someone else to sell it for you....

However, some things are easier to sell than others. Ideally, you'd want a product that people will want to buy, because of their HIGH PASSION (like you wrote about).... I think there are certain topics where there are enough people passionate about that topic, yet not enough products out there to satisfy that market, so that anything on that topic will probably be bought up quickly. Anyhow, that's a good goal to aim for.... :)

I am a strong believer in niche markets. I think it's probably the easiest place to make money if you're just starting small, because then you're not competing with the Amazon.com's or the Wal-Marts, etc. If you're still small, you don't have the budget to compete with the giants, so it makes sense to target those markets which are too small for the giants to even bother with....

And sometimes, niche markets can grow. Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and other computer billionaires started when the personal computer industry was still a niche market! However, it was a niche market which grew....

But even if it stays a niche market, I believe you can still make good money....

I would define a niche market as a select group of people, with a high passion for something.... Hobbyists are an example of niche markets with high passion.... Practically any hobby you can think of has an associated niche market. When Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft, they were targeting the niche market of computer hobbyists! (Microsoft started out as a computer language company in the late 1970s, back when most people put their own micro-computers together from kits....)

What's the next niche which will grow? A friend of mine recently told me that he thought that the household "robotics" market is like the computer market was in the early days.... After all, there are interesting new household robots coming out, like the computer pet robot "Aibo" (by Sony).... And there are very passionate robot hobbyists, kind of like the computer hobbyists of the late 1970s.... Is he right about this? I don't know! But it's interesting to think about what the next booming niche market will be! :)

- Dien Rice