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How to get into a new niche. All profitable business niches

Sooner or later, a person faces the question: continue to work "for an uncle" or try his hand at his own business. Independent business means personal and financial independence, realization of ambitions, status. But at the same time, these are increased risks and full responsibility for the final result. The success of future entrepreneurship is largely determined by the correct choice of a business niche, which we will discuss in this article.

1. Decide on a business direction

Choosing a direction for future activity is the most important step for a novice businessman. No need to rush headlong into the first (albeit popular) idea that comes across. It is necessary to soberly assess not only the prospects of the direction, but also your own opportunities for entering the chosen sphere and developing in it. It is desirable that the niche meets at least one (and ideally all) criteria:

The chosen direction should be pleasant. A business that you do with pleasure is more pleasant and easier to develop. Many businessmen called themselves happy just because they turned a hobby into a business. As a result, you receive both moral and material rewards.
You need to have competence in the chosen direction. Even if your niche profile is quite competitive, good professional knowledge and skills should help you take your market share.
The offered services and goods must be in demand. The well-known formula from classical economics “demand creates supply” is relevant at all times. Of course, there are high-risk areas in which venture companies bring fundamentally new products to the market: in fact, the reverse formula works - the manufacturer creates demand with the help of a completely new product or service. But this option is more suitable as an additional one in the presence of an existing effective business. At the initial stage, the risks must be justified.

2. We evaluate the prospects

It's good when you have a clear idea of what you want to do and how to go about it. But most often, when choosing a niche for a business, throwing between different options begins. Therefore, it is better to make a short list of ideas that, in your opinion, will “shoot” in your execution. With this list in place, you can begin to evaluate each idea more carefully in terms of opportunities and threats.

First of all, you need to understand two things:

Who is your consumer in each potential niche.
What are the prospects for each direction.

You need to clearly understand what customer needs your business will cover. Potential consumers are money, and they need to be evaluated using various mechanisms: surveys of acquaintances, thematic forums, groups on social networks, expert opinions. It is necessary to draw up portraits of consumers for each chosen niche.

The chosen area should have development prospects. It makes no sense to invest in a direction that, although it is in demand now, has a tendency to "collapse" in the near future.

3. Weigh our options

The entry threshold is different everywhere, and this is influenced by various objective and subjective factors. When evaluating each promising niche, these factors should be taken into account, even those that at first glance may seem insignificant:

Competition. You need to understand who your competitors are and what advantages you will give to potential customers. If the offer in a niche is excessive, and you are not ready to offer competitive advantages, then even knowledge and desire will not help you gain any significant position in the market.
your potential. It is about internal and external potential. Evaluate not only your personal capabilities, but also the capabilities of your environment. A childhood friend can become the first supplier of components, a wife’s girlfriend can become a target audience and at the same time word of mouth advertising, an influential acquaintance can become a lobbyist of interests in the chosen market.
Start-up capital. It is important to understand the source of funding for starting a business. And if for the service sector this will not be the most significant amount, then for the manufacturing sector it is quite decent. It’s good if you have enough of your own funds, but will you be ready to donate someone else’s or borrowed money?

Careful study of all factors for each chosen niche will help to gradate and compile your personal rating of business ideas. And then it remains only not to be afraid to take the first step.

4. We count correctly

Drawing up a preliminary business plan for each idea is a rather laborious, but necessary step. It is important to understand that "the game is worth the candle" because the ultimate goal of any business is to make a profit. Doing business for the sake of the process itself is wrong and will eventually lead to financial ruin.

It is the insufficient depth of immersion and excessive optimism in the calculations at the initial stage that is the main reason for the unprofitability and bankruptcy of most novice businessmen. When calculating, you need to focus on a pessimistic forecast. Even a seemingly promising direction with many unmet customer needs is far from a guarantee of a flow of consumers in the early stages of business development. The path from a potential client to a real one is quite long, and you need to be ready to go through it “in the red”.

When drawing up a preliminary business plan, you need to calculate:

One-time expenses at the very beginning. This may be the purchase of the necessary equipment and tools, the cost of registering an individual entrepreneur or legal entity, buying a franchise, licensing, etc. These costs are one-time and make up the bulk of the start-up costs.
Current or monthly expenses. This includes rent of premises, salaries of employees, utility bills, bank services, tax deductions, purchase of components and other costs. You need to look at what you can save on at the beginning, and certain types of work (accounting, website maintenance) can be outsourced. At the same time, you need to have a “margin of safety” for at least three months, and preferably for six months, i.e. be prepared to finance current costs out of your own pocket.
Income plan or revenue. This is exactly the calculation for which optimism is the main enemy. Estimate revenue prospects based on the lower bound to be ready for reality.
Supply plan. This is not an actual problem for the service sector, but an important one for production. The production process must be provided with materials and components evenly and constantly.

A preliminary business plan is different from a full-fledged one, but it is quite enough to assess the possibility of entering the chosen business niche.

5. Making the final choice

After going through the previous 4 steps, you will see a more or less clear picture for each business idea. You have preliminary calculations, an assessment of each direction and an understanding of what needs to be done. After weighing the prospects of each idea according to the proposed methodology, at the end you will get a very real niche for your own business.

Be prepared for difficulties in the early stages and be patient: the return on investment is not a matter of one month. But the prospects that open up are worth it to start your own business.

At the stage of business planning, it is important to choose the right path.

Literally, a niche is a recess in the wall. Globally - a zone of convenience. In the economy - a free place where the entrepreneur will be able to realize the plan.

The task of a novice businessman is to choose one in order to find clients.

Niche Requirements

Arouse interest among those who cannot find a service in the proper volume on the market.
Demand
Being free is targeting a specific target audience that has an unmet need for your product.

These criteria guarantee the profitability of the business.

When a person wants to do business, he looks for ideas for implementation, focusing on what surrounds him. The first plans are associated with current activities:

trade in products, things;
restaurants, cafes;
shoe repair, tailoring;
pharmacy.

It's easy to navigate - follow the standard selection algorithm: narrow the search to a minimum. Example:

Segment (confectionery).
Category (cakes).
Nisha (wedding).

The narrowing should be maximum, then things will go more efficiently. Impress the young with sweet figurines of the bride and groom for decoration.

What is the best area to open a business?

Not all branches of private entrepreneurship are profitable and in demand.

Those who have achieved success remember how they started from scratch, looked for options and ideas, rejoiced at the first money they earned. In many ways, their professional growth was successful due to the correct understanding of business processes: someone was based on intuition, the other - on experience.

Determine for yourself five areas of possible activity according to the algorithm for choosing a particular niche. Check the idea for viability. At this stage, you will have to work hard.

Market research

The demand for products is due to the presence of a constant need for it among a large number of the population. The buyer must want to spend money on the product, and the more he is willing to give money for it (with a minimum investment), the higher the profit will be.

Look at the chosen direction from the side of the buyer - are you ready to spend money on this idea. Talk to friends, relatives - make a list of priority needs for them. Get an opinion on the importance of the chosen way of earning.

Demand and competition analysis

Enter the name of the service in the search bar of the browser - you will understand the approximate number of enterprises that are engaged in a similar business, and evaluate the circle of potential buyers. It is useful to get acquainted with analytical data on a certain type of business, which is published by many authoritative economic publications.

Practice

Check the work of the conceived idea on the test group. It can include relatives and friends. If you want an unbiased assessment, offer a product to a dozen random passers-by or inquire about possible cooperation with companies that, in your opinion, can become customers.

Do not be discouraged if, after carefully developing a business idea, you have to look for other unoccupied market segments. An in-depth analysis of your own creative potential will help with this.

How to determine which business niches are not occupied

According to statistics, promising vectors of entrepreneurship for Russians are:

Services: accounting, legal, repair.
under the order.
Online courses, tutoring (English, singing, dancing, preparing for the exam).
Online stores of gifts, souvenirs in the style of hand made.

Opening another business in a crowded niche is futile - more experienced competitors will win the fight. There are sectors with little competition and untapped markets. How to choose your own business niche and which search model to use.

Beginning entrepreneurs, as a rule, are aware that they are going to enter the market, where competitors are already waiting for them. The only way to avoid fighting for a place in the sun is to find a business niche that is free from competitors.

It may seem that the modern market is replete with all possible offers, but upon closer examination, it turns out that there are opportunities for development. Two strategies can be considered when looking for a free niche for developing a new business:

Exploring the old market with new offerings

This is a narrow sector with little competition. Trumps in this segment will be high quality goods and services or unusual offers.

New offerings in an untapped market

This strategy is much more difficult, since it requires trading, production or provision of services unfamiliar to the consumer. In this way of business development, significant costs will be required for organizing a new type of production, registering a trademark, advertising campaign, promotion on the market, etc. It must be admitted that the chances of success with such a strategy are higher.

You can find an unoccupied niche by looking closely at the market, discussing with friends and relatives the needs for goods and services, and analyzing the state of a particular market segment. As a result of such research, it is quite possible that a niche will be determined that is poorly developed or even free.

For small entrepreneurs, which is quite understandable, narrow market niches are attractive because they:

Little competition.
Individual approach to consumers.
Stable, albeit small, market capacity.

It is not easy to master a narrow segment of the market, it is necessary to carefully analyze all the positive and negative points, study a new product and the attitude of potential buyers towards it. Only after studying the features of the selected segment, you can form an advertising strategy. If you decide to promote a completely new product, you will need to organize a non-traditional advertising campaign to attract the attention of buyers.

Apparently, there is no way to guarantee an unmistakable choice of one's place in business. In each individual case, the personality of the businessman himself will be of great importance in determining the direction of the business.

Apparently, the widespread opinion has the right to life that when choosing a direction, you need to evaluate the market and choose a niche with the least competition and a good margin. It is believed that this method guarantees successful entry into a niche. The method of choice seems certainly reasonable, but if you think about it, everything is not so simple.

Let's look at the automotive market - huge and extremely competitive. Suddenly you realize that in your city the trade in premium cars has not been mastered at all. Those who wish cannot buy a Ferrari either in your city or in neighboring cities, and in the nearest metropolis there is only one salon offering such cars. Here it is - an unoccupied niche without competitors and with an unimaginable margin.

Pushing hard, you open a car dealership with a Ferrari. But for some reason, queues are not lining up for you. Under all favorable conditions - demand, the purchasing power of the population, the absence of competitors - there is no trade. What's the matter? It turns out that in order to sell a very expensive car, you need to be among people who can buy it. This example is, of course, somewhat exaggerated. But the same principle applies to the sale of tomatoes in the bazaar. When trading, it is impossible to achieve good results without mutual understanding with buyers.

Therefore, we do not dare to confidently assert that there are trouble-free algorithms for finding a successful business niche. Luck is a capricious young lady, it is impossible to be sure of her favor. But we can tell you three ways that will reduce the risks of entering the chosen niche.

Innovation model

This strategy is good for romantic businessmen who dream of changing the world for the better. Within this model, you do not need to look for a suitable niche, but create your own. To implement this strategy, a solid budget is needed.

For example, you invented a pillow for insomnia. Now you need to not only produce your miracle pillows, but also convince people to buy them. You do not even have to invent something yourself, you need to be able to push a completely new product onto the market. So we treat them as innovators or, but they were not pioneers in their industry. But it was they, and not Xerox and Creative, who created an innovative niche.

To be frank, it is unlikely that a mere mortal is able to create an innovative niche. You need very special conditions or unprecedented luck, or outstanding charisma, or a lot of money in order to be able to push your new niche into the market. If everything succeeds, you will get everything at once - all the cream is yours. The obvious disadvantage of the strategy is high costs with a high probability of failure.

Proven Models

Universal strategy. At the heart of all the most advanced technologies are basic things. Sometimes, to enter an undeveloped niche, it is enough to choose an unpromoted base.

Here are some examples of "eternal themes":

Money. Why they are needed, no one needs to explain. And bankers are needed to streamline the cash flow. Working with money is not new, but it is always attractive.
Safety and health. These are eternal values, since everyone wants to be healthy and confident in their own safety.
Relationship. Hot topic. Skype and bring in billions, as they were able to offer us new ways of communication. There is something to think about - an unlimited audience is waiting for new proposals.
External attractiveness. Everyone wants to be not just beautiful, it is very important to have a bright personality. Any help in creating an attractive image will be accepted with enthusiasm.
Time is an irreplaceable resource. Any automatic device that saves time finds many consumers.
Entertainment. This market is truly inexhaustible - people spend on pleasure without deep reflection.
Subculture. There are many types of subcultures, you need to identify and use them.

The list goes on, but you already understood that this method does not require discoveries. It is only necessary to use already known mechanisms. True, many people prefer to use this method, and finding a fresh direction for a business with financial prospects can be difficult.

Hobbies

Quite often, entrepreneurs' hobbies become business projects. What's wrong with combining business with pleasure? For those who have decided to do business, but do not yet know how, this method is the most favorable. Hobby monetization is a lightweight form of adaptation in the business world. You will do what you do best, and even with the most unsuccessful start, you will not lose. You will get pleasure in any case - whether you can create a profitable business or not.

Summarizing

Choosing your niche is never easy. If you find an unoccupied segment in which, in your opinion, there is a lot of free money and miraculously there are no competitors, do not rush to rejoice. Most likely, the “gold mine” is empty, because competitors left it due to lack of prospects. Although it is possible that you really came across "new lands" - go for it!

Have you made a list of topics and phrases? Great, now is the time to check if they are in demand. To do this, we go to this site and, one by one, "hammer" our topics in English into the search.

It's not fast, but it's worth it.

We translate phrases from our large list into English - and forward. The more bold the number in the rightmost column, the better. The site itself suggests that requests with a rating of more than 100 be considered a niche. By the way, this way you can weed out initially failed requests. For example, the word "flower" (flower) has a rating of 0.03, and "flower pattern" (flower pattern, so beloved by all of us) - 0.25 - whoops ...

I usually check requests for America (drop-down list to the right of the request field) - they often buy a vector and many diverse requests there. The column "Count" is the number of pictures - your potential competitors, "views" - the number of views by customers of images for this query, "sales" - the number of sales. Formulate requests the way a potential buyer would.

Request example:

wooden furniture vector - 18.37

freelancer - 59.16

thai massage - 78.57

Oh, you can draw on the topic of Thai massage - not exactly a niche, but the data is not bad.

When we “groped” for potential niches, we need to go to shutterstock and check them out. We drive a niche phrase into the search and see what we are offered to buy. As we all know, not all authors are attentive to the selection of keywords and often in the search for a query there are pictures that have nothing to do with the query.

We look at the thai massage request on the shutterstock. Oh, yes, there are only photos!

You need to go back to the niche search site and add the word “vector”, otherwise the results are not at all relevant.

We hammer in “thai massage vector” and get ... 1,163! Wow! There are only 14 pictures on the shutterstock upon request (it's funny that one of them is mine, sent to the exam). In general, you should not be very happy - usually such huge numbers mean that real buyers simply do not fill in such a request. Although it's still worth trying to draw something relevant.

Let me tell you about a little embarrassment that happened to me not so long ago.

I looked around and realized - bah, but the Olympics are coming! We urgently need to draw something Olympic! The Olympic infographic query resulted in a rating of 3,166! Well, fuck yourself - I thought - I checked the pictures on the stock - there was nothing like the Olympic infographics there! With the attitude “now I will become a millionaire”, I drew a few pictures - and sent them for verification.

They were rejected with the wording "Trademark--Image potentially infringes on intellectual property rights"

I scratched my turnips and realized that the Olympic rings cannot be used in pictures, because this is a trade mark, that is, an object whose use for commercial purposes is prohibited. I removed the rings from medals and pedestals, sent pictures again - again a refusal.

Wrote a letter to support. There they explained to me that the word "Olympic" is also a trade mark.

Okay, I spent a couple of hours to clear all the pictures from the word Olympic, sent, again the refusal ... “Please remove all keywords pertaining to the Olympic Games and sochi 2014 (trademarked)”

In general, as it turned out by trial and error, the words Olympic, Olympics, Sochi 2014 cannot be used. They even killed a picture with the word Sochi. Well, okay - I remade the Olympic infographics into just sports ones, God forbid, they will be sold more often :) But it became clear why the niche search site showed such a high rating.

Everyone who wants to open a company must look for a market, a niche. A niche in business is that small area that has the potential to generate income and, by mastering which, you can build a company. A niche can be large or small. Usually, when talking about niches, they mean a small sales market. But you should look for niches that have the potential to grow into a medium-sized business.

When developing niche ideas, you should pay attention to a whole range of factors. The success of a niche depends on these factors. The easiest way to measure whether a niche will be profitable is to see how many copies of a product (product, service) can be sold and at what price. There are niches where you cannot sell a lot of product, but the price of the product can be very high and thus the niche becomes attractive. Below we will look at 5 principles for choosing a niche.

1. See the market.
Seeing a potential market, a niche is a constant challenge for entrepreneurs who want to start a new business. For some, it does not matter what exactly to produce or sell - bicycles and board games or tractors. It is important for other people to love the product - what they sell. These are usually the majority. That is why you should choose a business niche not only on the principle that it is potentially profitable, but also because you like it.

Usually, professionals in some field have the skills necessary to create some things, do some work. These skills, in the future, can be used to open your own business. Professionals in some field have a number of advantages - they see niches in their professional field and are able to recognize those areas where improvement is needed. In addition, such people usually have all the necessary skills and resources to start a business, often without investment or. And even if considerable investments are required, they can immediately figure out who can become an investor.

If you are a professional in a certain field and you like doing your own thing, then you may want to consider finding a niche in the field where you are most competent. Today, most people start companies not for money, but rather to do things the way they like.

So, it is important to see the market. It’s even better to have several ideas in stock at once, and from the same area. One will not shoot - you can start trying another. Having in stock several ideas from one area at once, you insure the risks of an entrepreneur. For example, it will be much easier for you to make a successful business in the field of agriculture if you have worked in this area and you have about 5-7 ideas on what could be improved. In this case, success will be much closer to you - you have experience in this niche, you see what can be improved, you start doing a project and - even if you have difficulties with this first business - you can still start another company, only with a different idea, in the same niche.

Today, builders, pharmacists, seamstresses can start their own small companies, seeing what needs are in the area where they are employed. If everything is calculated correctly, the process is set up correctly, then you can seriously compete with those companies that are old-timers in the market.

2. Describe the target audience. Let's say you've identified a niche in your business. Now you are starting the most interesting stage - testing your idea for viability. The viability of an idea is tested only in practice, in other words, it cannot be said for sure that an idea will 100% succeed or fail. There are certain rules that help reduce risks, but you can be 100% sure that you have chosen the right niche only in practice.

That is why it is worth starting the production of prototypes or just selling the product as soon as possible - in order to understand whether it is worth pursuing the product further or whether you need to go in search of other ideas. But initially, it is important for us to understand who our target audience is - customers on whom we will test the business. Since we need customers to build a company, we should look for them. But in order to look for them, we need to understand who exactly to look for.

So, you need to be clear about who the person who will buy your product is. Describe the person's age, gender, income, preferences, the person's surroundings, where they go - you will get a picture drawn by your imagination and some facts on the basis of which you build guesses. Find 15-20 people who fit your profile. Then offer them your product. If the product “does not work”, you will be able to determine why: either no one needs your product at all, or you have incorrectly identified your target audience.

3. How much money is there in the niche? Repeat sales model. In case you correctly identified your target audience, you should calculate how much money is there in the niche? It may happen that the niche is very small, almost nothing can be earned on it. How much money are people willing to spend on your product? Will they come back for him again?

With food, cosmetics and all products in the FMCG category, it's easy - if the buyer likes it, he will come back again. Much more difficult with other products. Especially when it comes to innovation, products that are difficult to sell. In this case, maybe you should not get involved in creating a business in this area at all.

4. Deal cycles. The transaction cycle is the period of time that passes from the receipt of a client's application to the receipt of money in your account. The shorter the deal cycle, the better for the entrepreneur. If a person comes to the store, then the transaction cycle is several minutes - from taking the goods from the shelf (or on the website of the online store) to payment. If you are involved in specific building structures, then the transaction cycle will stretch for weeks or even months.

The margin may be large, but all the time while you are negotiating, preparing information for the client, you are forced to pay bills, salaries to employees, and so on. Do you have enough resources and endurance to build such a business? When in doubt, it is best not to take on projects where the transaction cycle is several weeks or even months.

5. What should be liked and disliked in business. We come to a very important point that matters for the project - will your business in the chosen niche be successful? Ultimately, success or failure largely depends on the individual's personal involvement in the project. In any business for which investors give money, it is important that the initiator has a strong interest in the project.

Without participation, without a great desire to build a company, nothing will happen, no matter how hard you try. Personal attitude is of the utmost importance. It all has to do, to a large extent, with what you like to do and what you don't. It is probably difficult for most people to compile accounting reports and submit documents to the tax office, fill the site with goods and do many other routine things.

Today it is not a problem to outsource everything that you do not like to do. But, it is important to understand what you like to do, and is it possible to build a company on the basis of this? The entrepreneur is required to participate in product development, marketing and sales. Are you ready for this? Will you experience the pleasure of selling the product?

Some say they don't care what kind of business they do or what they sell. We leave this approach to your discretion, but still the personality of an entrepreneur, love for your business, the product that you make, is often much more important than the willingness to do any business, as long as it is a business and that it generates income.

Usually an entrepreneur finds a niche in the area that excites him. A pregnant woman could not find inexpensive clothes of proper quality and design for herself and created her own maternity goods store. Someone faced problems with admitting children to kindergarten. Someone is annoyed by queues in supermarkets, and this leads to the idea of alternative food stores.

A bicycle lover cannot quickly find a suitable model. Somebody's feet hurt from walking in heels all day long, and the idea of comfortable dress shoes and so on is born. Usually the sphere of solving ordinary problems that millions of people face daily is what it is like to find the perfect business niche. Usually the greatest success is brought by those ideas that are not out of touch with life (). And those who built a company on the basis of an idea are usually people who themselves felt discomfort from some unresolved problems and wanted to solve them, first of all, for themselves.

Finding a niche to start a business is both simple and complex.

This may be related to your professional qualities and skills, as we described at the beginning. It may be something from the field of solving problems that you yourself face on a daily basis. In any case, stock up on a list of several ideas and start working on them from the very first idea. If the experiment doesn't work, you can move on to the next step until you finally find something that you're really interested in doing and that makes money.