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Ask HN: Ok, I have found a Niche... or have I?
I think I have found a niche, but before I get too excited and run off, plan it all out, and code for the next 12 months...
HN: How can I make sure I am not mistaking and insure this idea is a hidden gem?
- arnorhs 16y agoDepends. Do you intend to build a content based site, an application or something else entirely?
- captaincrunch 16y agoIt would be more along the lines of a Web Portal/Service. There are a few major players, but only a few - and only one good one. I cannot seem to find many other companies like it.
- jasonlbaptiste 16y agoCan you find a way to reduce the 12 months to 2 months and front load the first 2 weeks doing some mockups to show 1-3 potential customers?
- ndimopoulos 16y agoCan you segment your target audience to a small subset and run an experiment there? The segment must represent as much as possible your target audience. Building a prototype shouldn't be that difficult or time consuming. This way you can have some data that might be used later on as marketing material for extra funding.
- mikecane 16y agoWhat's the amount of money being spent in that niche?
- captaincrunch 16y agoI am seeing the competitions name in Google Keywords selling at $2.00/average CPC, but the general and localized results in Canada are 0.05 with the same traffic.
- f1gm3nt 16y agoYou check by doing research. I've had a few ideas I thought were gems, then after some research I found a small number of companies doing similar things. This in itself is not a bad thing. If no one else is doing this ask yourself why? Is it because there is no money/profits in it? Or is it truly a unique idea that you can make profitable. The best is when there is one or two companies that doing things that are similar. That means there's a market for what you want. Through your spin on it.
- ja27 16y agoCan you find some existing product/service in that niche, set up a SEO-friendly site, and test conversion rates right now? You don't even have to make a dime off the conversions for now. That's one of the things Ed Dale's "30 Day Challenge" is good at teaching: how to "taste test" niche ideas. Unfortunately all the 2009 content is gone now because the 2010 starts next month. I wish they wouldn't do that. http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/ http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/
- stoney 16y agoThe old content is still there, you just need to know where to look: http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/training/2009day01.php http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/training/2009day01.php You can probably guess the URL for the next 30 days from that.
- Travis 16y agoI would suggest you immediately read Steve Blank's "4 steps.." book. He discusses this issue directly, and provides very detailed methods for validating your idea.
- stoney 16y agoGo and speak directly to a potential target user if you can, see what they have to say about it.