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We got a late start today. I say we, because my wife is doing the Challenge with me, over my shoulder. Today’s lesson was fairly simple, just idea generation. We were given some internet resources for our research (see links at bottom), and the following guidelines: think small. We were to look for small niches, not big markets such as Health and Fitness.
The challenging part for D. and I was focusing just on potential markets. We have always had an entrepreneurial mind set, and habitually go straight to potential products. For today’s exercise, that was a no go. The next step, as I understand it, will be to research the potential markets that we have identified, and see what they are looking for. Let the market tell us what the product should be. The exercise also limited us to 7 markets of our own choosing, no more and no less. There is, apparently, a good reason for this, but we weren’t told what it might be yet.
Limiting it to 7 was tough. We actually wound up with 10, but had to pare it down. Some were easy to dump, as they were fairly broad categories, and defied the concept of “niche”. Others we dropped because we really didn’t have much personal interest in them. Now here’s the thing with niche marketing: do you go with something you love, or go where the money is? Ideally, both, but the real question here is, are you thinking long term, or short term. Short or mid term might be Harry Potter, while long term might be something that you really have a passion for, possibly in a larger market. Oh, which way to go?
The other part of this that D. and I are working with is that we want to apply as much of the 30DC materials to our existing sites. This may mean some re-engineering of the core concepts. Honestly, at this stage, I don’t know. We may continue with techne-eikon and NewBranes exactly as they are, and build a niche empire with something else in order to support those two sites. It’s too early to tell, but I have a feeling that this is not the way we will go. Again, too early to tell.
Final note: what we learned today alone was worth paying for, and we don’t like paying for stuff. Er, you know what I mean. If this is a taste of what we are in for over the next month, I am way beyond thrilled. If I was excited before, I don’t know the word(s) to describe what I am now. Here then are the four links I mentioned:
eBay Pulse
Google Groups
Google Trends
technorati
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: 30DC
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 7:17 pmand is filed under 30 Day Challenge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
