6 ms·

Low-Competition Niches In Retail Software

111 points by p4bl0 15y ago

swlkr 15y ago
It's not really a herd mentality issue, it's more like if I'm going to quit my already boring job to start a company, I need to be passionate with what my new company is going to do. Maybe most entrepreneurial devs aren't into niche retail software, they'd rather write something that's directly useful to them... like a to-do list.
- hermitcrab 15y ago
  Mooooooooooooo!
- HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
  I half-heartedly started down the path of researching and developing a couple of apps with this in the back of my mind. Rental property management software and janitorial service management sw was where I went. I had experience in both and areas and I knew that there's boatloads of money waiting to be made in just these two fields, but finally I realized it was boring beyond belief, so I lost interest. And that was a big mistake! The mistake was in focusing on how exciting it was to write code for that domain but instead I should have focused on how great it would feel to help people in that industry with their problems. Approached that way it becomes, for me at least, much more interesting. Going back to the article, I'm sure that many entrepreneurial devs would love to start a business in retail software if they deeply understood how much impact they would have on people's lives and livelihoods.
  - hermitcrab 15y ago
    I agree. Writing an 'uncool' app that makes lots of people happy and is very profitable is preferable to writing a 'cool' app that no-one uses and makes no money (e.g. yet another Twitter client).
  - patrickk 15y ago
    "- Look in obscure places- We're often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don't make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467 (This is a part of the best comment I've ever read here on HN. Well worth a look.)
    - chc 15y ago
      He later turned it into an article on his blog, which has nicer formatting and I think some extra content (though I don't feel like comparing the two side-by-side to confirm it): http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionaire-in-three-years/ http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionai...
      - patrickk 15y ago
        I hadn't seen that. Thank you very much!
- bradleyland 15y ago
  I hear this from developers a lot, but here's the rub. Developing software that developers find interesting is no different than any other highly sought-after profession. Lots of young people want to be rockstars too, but there are only so many rockstars among us. The same applies for software. There is only room for so many "social networking X" companies. I hate to be the killer of dreams, but I've talked more than a couple of devs in to tackling less-than-interesting problems, with the promise that I'll do the footwork of getting the client on board for doing interesting things within their problem domain. For my part, I'm fortunate that I find business interesting. It doesn't matter much to me whether the business is publishing books or facilitating purchases. I enjoy the landscape view of every market. When you step back and look at these varied industries, many are just as subtle and interesting as the companies that occupy SV. You just have to look at them with the right set of eyes.
  - mattm 15y ago
    > I hate to be the killer of dreams, but I've talked more than a couple of devs in to tackling less-than-interesting problems, with the promise that I'll do the footwork of getting the client on board for doing interesting things within their problem domain. Are you still looking for any devs like this? I'd be interested in working on something practical even if not sexy.
rjprins 15y ago
Herd mentality is the result of domain knowledge. All programmers experience problems with ToDo lists.. How many programmers experience retail analytic problems? There are many, many more of these niches. If you want to find a good market start talking to people outside the software development industry. The further the better: - Doctors - Notaries - Florists - Elementary school teachers - etc.. You will come across some many problems begging for solutions you wouldn't know which one to pick.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  And you'll learn how hard it is to sell into these niches. I've met people that have built surprisingly good software for janitorial services, recycling centers, among other niches -- who found it really hard to sell, despite the need being there. I would love to see some stories about people who successfully sold into these sorts of niche markets.
  - alanfalcon 15y ago
    Sounds like there's an opportunity to create software that will help niche developers sell to niche markets ...
    - mattmanser 15y ago
      Well, it exists, but unfortunately they're wetware and they're called 'salesmen'.
    - mattmiller 15y ago
      I have been trying to figure out how to simplify selling to enterprise. The problem is sales decisions are made by managers who don't use the software. Getting the attention of these managers is expensive and the sale takes months. I think if you could let the enterprise user try the software first, then let them push management to buy the software you could sell to enterprise for less money w/o the sales people. The idea has holes, but I am working through it.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
programminggeek 15y ago
What you don't realize is that this happens with ALL businesses and ALL entrepreneurs. For example, in a college entrepreneurship class our teacher had to make a rule about not writing a business plan for opening up a chain restaurant. In fact, most of the ideas from the class were opening a bar, restaurant, pawnshop/payday loan, rental property website, computer repair service business, etc. I'm surprised starting a used car lot wasn't a common idea, but I digress. It's not just software developers who tend to follow trends. It is almost anyone who has ever tried to open a business. Most people aren't that creative beyond "I'm going to open a widget factory but mine will be red instead of blue" without ever considering any idea that is outside their everyday life experience.
- Joakal 15y ago
  I'd say it's a mix of arrogance and lack of education. Arrogance because "woah, Facebook billions. I'm going social network direction" without any such idea to be better. Lack of education can also mean lack of experience. Areas are: Business/Finance (Stocks, hiring, etc), creative skills, design skills and user experience skills. Math/Programming seems to be the fortitude of most of them but that alone won't execute well.
- astrofinch 15y ago
  This may be fairly well justified. When reading about successful entrepreneurs, I always try to figure out what the genesis of their idea is. Typically they seem to have industry domain knowledge before they start a company and not the other way around. It might be that learning about a new industry is the best path to riches, but my guess would be that you're best off doing focused research on that industry for a while first (ideas: get a job in it, do consulting for it, go to industry conferences, read books, read industry forums and blogs).
zinkem 15y ago
I have a little experience in retail management. I can't speak to #2 because I didn't deal with suppliers. I can however tell you that my fortune 500 employers had #1 and #3 in place already; these are basics that every retail software must have, these features will not sell your software. In the companies I worked for, middle managers liked using terminal-style tools and see most upgrades as a huge waste of money. Your system better do something pretty good to get the attention of some of these guys (and you better be able to illustrate it in saved wages). I'm young (under 30) and I felt this way, too. These guys are smart and they know their business. Now from a software designer's standpoint, the tools they use are terrible. There is a huge opportunity to improve them in too many ways to enumerate here. However, this article just covers the necessities retail software needs to be functional. Most retailers who have POS systems more sophisticated than a register from Staples will have this stuff already.
- pyre 15y ago
  True, but they are ideas worth pursuing, no? What you say just means that you'll need to do more research than just this blog post to get yourself started.
  - zinkem 15y ago
    Oh yea, lots of room for improvement. In my experience, the concrete suggestions (for niche 1 and 3) aren't necessarily potential niches, but starting points to build more powerful software. I should note, there is probably a huge opportunity to bring IT services to "mom and pop" style operations. But it needs to be dirt cheap or they won't be able to afford it. Lots of these people are struggling as it is and won't see a direct increase in sales as a result of new software.

111 points by p4bl0 15y ago

swlkr 15y ago

It's not really a herd mentality issue, it's more like if I'm going to quit my already boring job to start a company, I need to be passionate with what my new company is going to do. Maybe most entrepreneurial devs aren't into niche retail software, they'd rather write something that's directly useful to them... like a to-do list.

hermitcrab 15y ago
Mooooooooooooo!
HeyLaughingBoy 15y ago
I half-heartedly started down the path of researching and developing a couple of apps with this in the back of my mind. Rental property management software and janitorial service management sw was where I went. I had experience in both and areas and I knew that there's boatloads of money waiting to be made in just these two fields, but finally I realized it was boring beyond belief, so I lost interest. And that was a big mistake! The mistake was in focusing on how exciting it was to write code for that domain but instead I should have focused on how great it would feel to help people in that industry with their problems. Approached that way it becomes, for me at least, much more interesting. Going back to the article, I'm sure that many entrepreneurial devs would love to start a business in retail software if they deeply understood how much impact they would have on people's lives and livelihoods.
- hermitcrab 15y ago
  I agree. Writing an 'uncool' app that makes lots of people happy and is very profitable is preferable to writing a 'cool' app that no-one uses and makes no money (e.g. yet another Twitter client).
- patrickk 15y ago
  "- Look in obscure places- We're often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don't make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467 (This is a part of the best comment I've ever read here on HN. Well worth a look.)
  - chc 15y ago
    He later turned it into an article on his blog, which has nicer formatting and I think some extra content (though I don't feel like comparing the two side-by-side to confirm it): http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionaire-in-three-years/ http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionai...
    - patrickk 15y ago
      I hadn't seen that. Thank you very much!
bradleyland 15y ago
I hear this from developers a lot, but here's the rub. Developing software that developers find interesting is no different than any other highly sought-after profession. Lots of young people want to be rockstars too, but there are only so many rockstars among us. The same applies for software. There is only room for so many "social networking X" companies. I hate to be the killer of dreams, but I've talked more than a couple of devs in to tackling less-than-interesting problems, with the promise that I'll do the footwork of getting the client on board for doing interesting things within their problem domain. For my part, I'm fortunate that I find business interesting. It doesn't matter much to me whether the business is publishing books or facilitating purchases. I enjoy the landscape view of every market. When you step back and look at these varied industries, many are just as subtle and interesting as the companies that occupy SV. You just have to look at them with the right set of eyes.
- mattm 15y ago
  > I hate to be the killer of dreams, but I've talked more than a couple of devs in to tackling less-than-interesting problems, with the promise that I'll do the footwork of getting the client on board for doing interesting things within their problem domain. Are you still looking for any devs like this? I'd be interested in working on something practical even if not sexy.

rjprins 15y ago

Herd mentality is the result of domain knowledge. All programmers experience problems with ToDo lists.. How many programmers experience retail analytic problems? There are many, many more of these niches. If you want to find a good market start talking to people outside the software development industry. The further the better: - Doctors - Notaries - Florists - Elementary school teachers - etc.. You will come across some many problems begging for solutions you wouldn't know which one to pick.

kenjackson 15y ago
And you'll learn how hard it is to sell into these niches. I've met people that have built surprisingly good software for janitorial services, recycling centers, among other niches -- who found it really hard to sell, despite the need being there. I would love to see some stories about people who successfully sold into these sorts of niche markets.
- alanfalcon 15y ago
  Sounds like there's an opportunity to create software that will help niche developers sell to niche markets ...
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    Well, it exists, but unfortunately they're wetware and they're called 'salesmen'.
  - mattmiller 15y ago
    I have been trying to figure out how to simplify selling to enterprise. The problem is sales decisions are made by managers who don't use the software. Getting the attention of these managers is expensive and the sale takes months. I think if you could let the enterprise user try the software first, then let them push management to buy the software you could sell to enterprise for less money w/o the sales people. The idea has holes, but I am working through it.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

programminggeek 15y ago

What you don't realize is that this happens with ALL businesses and ALL entrepreneurs. For example, in a college entrepreneurship class our teacher had to make a rule about not writing a business plan for opening up a chain restaurant. In fact, most of the ideas from the class were opening a bar, restaurant, pawnshop/payday loan, rental property website, computer repair service business, etc. I'm surprised starting a used car lot wasn't a common idea, but I digress. It's not just software developers who tend to follow trends. It is almost anyone who has ever tried to open a business. Most people aren't that creative beyond "I'm going to open a widget factory but mine will be red instead of blue" without ever considering any idea that is outside their everyday life experience.

Joakal 15y ago
I'd say it's a mix of arrogance and lack of education. Arrogance because "woah, Facebook billions. I'm going social network direction" without any such idea to be better. Lack of education can also mean lack of experience. Areas are: Business/Finance (Stocks, hiring, etc), creative skills, design skills and user experience skills. Math/Programming seems to be the fortitude of most of them but that alone won't execute well.
astrofinch 15y ago
This may be fairly well justified. When reading about successful entrepreneurs, I always try to figure out what the genesis of their idea is. Typically they seem to have industry domain knowledge before they start a company and not the other way around. It might be that learning about a new industry is the best path to riches, but my guess would be that you're best off doing focused research on that industry for a while first (ideas: get a job in it, do consulting for it, go to industry conferences, read books, read industry forums and blogs).

zinkem 15y ago

I have a little experience in retail management. I can't speak to #2 because I didn't deal with suppliers. I can however tell you that my fortune 500 employers had #1 and #3 in place already; these are basics that every retail software must have, these features will not sell your software. In the companies I worked for, middle managers liked using terminal-style tools and see most upgrades as a huge waste of money. Your system better do something pretty good to get the attention of some of these guys (and you better be able to illustrate it in saved wages). I'm young (under 30) and I felt this way, too. These guys are smart and they know their business. Now from a software designer's standpoint, the tools they use are terrible. There is a huge opportunity to improve them in too many ways to enumerate here. However, this article just covers the necessities retail software needs to be functional. Most retailers who have POS systems more sophisticated than a register from Staples will have this stuff already.

pyre 15y ago
True, but they are ideas worth pursuing, no? What you say just means that you'll need to do more research than just this blog post to get yourself started.
- zinkem 15y ago
  Oh yea, lots of room for improvement. In my experience, the concrete suggestions (for niche 1 and 3) aren't necessarily potential niches, but starting points to build more powerful software. I should note, there is probably a huge opportunity to bring IT services to "mom and pop" style operations. But it needs to be dirt cheap or they won't be able to afford it. Lots of these people are struggling as it is and won't see a direct increase in sales as a result of new software.