2 ms·

You answered your own question: they differ in price and softness. There's a "basic TP" niche and a "premium TP" niche -- and maybe a couple more, but not many

You answered your own question: they differ in price and softness. There's a "basic TP" niche and a "premium TP" niche -- and maybe a couple more, but not many. Okay, you say, since no two products are exactly identical, how is my talk of niches not vacuous? Because it's not enough for the products not to be identical: they must be differentiated in the mind of the market. That is, the differences must matter to at least some part of the market. If you have a small market share, and you are unable to differentiate your product from its competition in some way -- price or features or both -- your market share will go to zero. The world is littered with examples; I'm sure you can think of plenty yourself. Ask any angel or VC you know what they think of a business plan that proposes to capture a small fraction of a huge market, without laying out a viable marketing plan for differentiating the product.

tastybites 16y ago
I'm not talking about ideas that angels or VCs like, I'm talking about running a real god damn business. Your mind has been twisted into thinking like a VC. You're talking about the toilet paper market having niche market segments. Are you out of your mind? Angels and VCs want 100x+ multiple exits. Business people don't need that, or anything at all like it. What they need is a business with customers.
- jholman 16y ago
  > Are you out of your mind? I humbly suggest that this might not be the tone you ought to take, and it might not be the tone you'd like to take.
  - tastybites 16y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2252152 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2252152 Here's an entire thread for you.
whatusername 16y ago
It's funny we're talking about Toilet Paper. You do realise that 2.6 Billion people don't have access to a western toilet? But there are massive marketing and social pushes ( http://www.worldtoilet.org http://www.worldtoilet.org ) to increase the size of this market dramatically.

tastybites 16y ago

I'm not talking about ideas that angels or VCs like, I'm talking about running a real god damn business. Your mind has been twisted into thinking like a VC. You're talking about the toilet paper market having niche market segments. Are you out of your mind? Angels and VCs want 100x+ multiple exits. Business people don't need that, or anything at all like it. What they need is a business with customers.

jholman 16y ago
> Are you out of your mind? I humbly suggest that this might not be the tone you ought to take, and it might not be the tone you'd like to take.
- tastybites 16y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2252152 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2252152 Here's an entire thread for you.

whatusername 16y ago

It's funny we're talking about Toilet Paper. You do realise that 2.6 Billion people don't have access to a western toilet? But there are massive marketing and social pushes ( http://www.worldtoilet.org http://www.worldtoilet.org ) to increase the size of this market dramatically.