Hot answers tagged niche
6
Traditionally Military, Medical, Aviation, Banking and Scientific Research ... Basically anything that is hard and takes a lot of domain knowledge and huge amount of certification to get into
IE. Anything with a massive barrier to entry.
If you have knowledge in an area like this, then I would say, "go for it" because a good solution here you will be able ...
6
This really sounds like a bad way to start a software product. You should be choosing an area that you have a real interest in, or at least some strong knowledge in. How are you going to know what your users need if you don't understand the market properly.
Lower customer acquisition costs is absolutely not going to be the reason your software product ...
6
When it comes to seeking funding from VC's or Angels - if you actually think that's a viable form of funding, quite frankly you need to rethink your financing strategy. Sorry to be blunt, but in my line of work (I'm the co-founder of an emerging business incubator and my co-founder runs another emerging tech incubator that I work closely with) that's the ...
5
You seem to have a very executable plan already - go for it!
The idea sounds similar to what Mahalo is doing - check out this interview with Jason Calacanis. There is plenty of niches to be filled.
Tips:
For setting up - There are hosted Wordpress solutions. Fast and easy.
For managing it - Best to do it yourself in the beginning - but when it gets ...
4
Building for Yourself or Other People
You can find success building for yourself or for other people, but the key is to have unfettered access to at least one person in the demographic you're looking to sell to. Niches where you know someone on the inside (what I call a "warm niche") will be dramatically easier to succeed in than something you pick out of a ...
3
You wrote two statements:
"The niche is actually fairly popular"
"the ones I emailed with my announcement didn't bother responding". There is information in that statement.
Statement 1 is the hypothesis, and statement 2 is the test result. There is information in the second statement, since it is the test of your hypothesis.
Unless you targeted the ...
3
I have to agree with Tim in the previous comment. You are much more likely to succeed and be passionate about a startup if you start by doing something you are interested in. Don't think about where a market is, start with a problem you have and its very likely that many people out there have the same problem.
Check out this article by Paul Graham : Making ...
3
In case of niche apps, the free is usually not the best way to go (think about it - eCPM you could get with a well positioned app is $1, how many users would you need to earn $3000/month?).
I mostly do niche apps, and if I make one free, I put in in the ads for my other apps / products. I think this is the way it's usually being done.
I'd suggest switching ...
3
Ad networks use different optimization methods, so it's hard to say.
It may be more important to look towards a more independent ad network who will give you better service and support, since it sounds like you might need some nuanced help or customization with what you're trying to achieve.
I'd recommend researching a few online and seeing what they offer ...
2
my suggestion is to just go ahead and build something great, something that you like, and even better something that you could use yourself.
Instead of using tools or Google... ask some real business owners around you... ask what part of their business is more painful to them to deal with and then just look at possible ways you could help by writing ...
2
Well - many may believe that the lowest price counts, but I tend to put a higher value towards support and technical capabilities.
An example: Here's a company that was burned by yahoo small business, due to mismanaged hosting. Open exploit in wordpress instance on a shared hosting environment allowed hacker to modify multiple websites with bad payload. ...
2
Think about what you can offer -- are you a classic web host? or can you offer something very niche and value-added. Ie, how does a specific small business get information to their best customers (this is in the end what web hosting is about.. it is just means to an end).
You need to add a lot of value to make it work, but it can happen. I know because I ...
2
I would say that if you know going into it that its a competitive niche, you need to make sure that you make a true commitment to it and not give up too easily. Early on things will surely get frustrating and you need to keep at it.
Try to identify an angle that makes you stand out. With project management software, some of those packages can be overly ...
2
A few tactics I've discovered since I started looking into this:
Using Google Alerts to monitor for news mentions of the keywords I'm targeting is a great way to find content both to get links from and to respond to. Reaction pieces are not only easier to write since they have a built in prompt, but it's usually pretty easy to add value to what a harried ...
2
Funny enough that's what most Internet marketers do, chase the niches with most potential, focusing on the process & execution instead on what you're selling.By thinking about how to become the best in the niche, we are able to keep going at it.
If you are not passionate about the niche, but you feel that it has potential, then I would say focus on the ...
2
Start-ups are hard. really hard. The odds are against you. Why handicap yourself by choosing to niche market where you have no prior experience or specific "niche software development"? Why not start in an industry and with a platform that you have knowledge and experience?
If for what ever reason that is not an option, then here are some ideas for getting ...
2
It is worth starting with a weak idea, but the key to execution is refining and improving on the idea. Being able to understand the market you're going after or discovering a new one you didn't think about may happen as well. The ability of your application to integrate with another popular application in a particular niche may be all you need to ...
2
I only know 3 kind of jobs in the world: Those that you're good at, those that you like and finally those that makes money.
If you try to stick only if those that you like, dude, you can end up doing something that you either is not good enough or don't pays your bills (or both)!
Your best course of action is to pick a job with the three characteristics at ...
2
There is potentially a very long list which summerises as "find prospects who are local and put your pitch to them".
Working out who is going to be interested ... thats a big one and another set of questions from you, the rest assumes you know who your target market actually is ...
Some ways to go about finding local prospects:
If you are on LinkedIn ...
2
CMO implies enough money to have other people working as employees.
Here is what I would do:
consider hiring agencies to do the conversion work (conversionvodoo for instance)
read this - http://sixteenventures.com/saas-secret-to-one-million-dollars
remote is perfectly viable if you use good tools like hipchat/basecamp
the amount budgeted for marketing is ...
2
First, Linkshare will only want to allow you to join their network if you have a website, so you'll need some sort of web version of your app also in order to get approved. In fact, you may only really need a mobile website packaged up with something like PhoneGap, depending on the complexity of your app idea.
The iTunes affiliate program allows you to link ...
2
It is a very common business model for music related apps in the app store. It works for shazam and for the various tap tap games.
With that in mind, generating a large revenue in the app store is very difficult, and requires a serious investment in marketing (either in money, which is usually counter productive) or in some original and innovative viral ...
2
I've been working with free apps now for the last 3 years, many of them in top position in Apple appstore, Google play and Windows Phone, with several hundred million impressions per months, here are my 2 cents.
First off, we start with iOS and Android:
Choose a ad mediation network rather then a single ad network.
And ad mediation network let's you use ...
1
This is an interesting question, which makes a lot of sense, as we all want to maximise our potential for profit. However, you do have to play to your strengths.
Banks would be willing to pay a million dollars for something that helps their trader's P&L, but if you don't have the right knowledge and contacts, you'll never get in the door.
1
I don't know about this being the optimal approach, but here is a sales strategy that has worked for us in the past for getting a new product off the ground:
Visit businesses in your target market. If it's big business you will probably need to do some research on who to present to. If it's a small enough business you can probably walk in the front door ...
1
Small market size is a very real problem for investors.
First a little background.
Many venture capital (VC) firms raise money from limited partners (LPs) and invest money on their behalf. Many LPs expect a 10x return on their investment. Because most startups fail, VCs try to invest in "homeruns" - companies that may return 100x on their investment. ...
1
From what you are saying your business is doing great. With sales like that you should be able to raise easily.
Put a good and simple presentation and start investment round. Most investors wouldn't mind if your business is niche, as long as your financial projections look good.
Put together a financial figures and see a consultant or advisor, then revise ...
1
You are a consulting firm? Why are you scared of meeting people in person? You should meet your potential customers in person. Goto their office and pitch what you have to offer.
Do some research, study case studies how other companies profited from switching to open source. Collect some data, present it in a visual way.
THIS IS A LOCAL BUSINESS, YOU ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
