The Niche Within a Niche Idea, Don’t Bring Sand to the Beach

As evidenced by you reading this right now, the Internet is definitely here to stay as a medium of exchange, commerce and ideas.

That’s great right? Revolutionary, innovative and all that, correct? Yes but your start up doesn’t have to be billed as an online start-up, a social networking community, a blog, an e-commerce site or produce revenue based on any of the buzzwords or, to coin a better phrase, “herd words” that will have you on a long list of funding applicants.

Even if your business is for, by and on the Internet, you should be selling your idea, the idea of you, the monetization of that idea, the long-term sustainability of that idea and the ability of that idea to pay dividends for investors not using prefix letter of “e-this,” “i-that” or “Internet-based” here or there, to get funding for your business.

There are lots of entrepreneurs who last a long time and come to the top of the funding heap by finding a niche within a niche. Maybe it’s not as sexy as setting up a web site where people come to complain about whether or not they made it to the gym but who needs sexy. Sure sex sells but what’s the motivation to fund it? Don’t answer that.

The niche within a niche idea can be a fail safe to ensure that when you court potential angel investors and/or venture capitalists that you aren’t bringing sand to the beach.

For instance, if you’re a computer expert why not use the power and knowledge of servers and routers to serve as the distribution point for a virtual battery reconditioning business. Talk about working out of your garage. Moreover, sustainable living and organic living, the green industry – whatever that is – is another area that is popular but still nascent and gaining a lot of traction.

None of this is meant to derail or redirect you from your dreams, goals, ambitions or aspirations. If you can milk the Internet in ways real or imagined, by all means do so. But knowing your industry, then finding a niche, then a niche within a niche, then adding the “you-ness,” that is your skill and personality, is actually the best combination of ideas you can take to an investor or a group of potential investors.

About the Author
Jabulani Leffall, 33, is an award-winning journalist and writer who attended Journalism School at the University of Missouri. His work has appeared in the Financial Times of London, Dow Jones Marketwatch, The Baltimore Sun, Investor's Business Daily, Variety, CFO Magazine, Compliance Week, Redmond Magazine, Black Enterprise, the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Los Angeles Daily News among other publications. He has been a George Washington Williams Fellow for the Independent Press Association where from 2002 to 2004 he studied the effects of subprime lending on poor communities. After what happened in 2007 and 2008, he feels vindicated as a journalist for having called what was going to happen. What else? Yeah, he also contributed vital research to the 1998 book University of Missouri History Professor Robert E. Weems, which is titled "Desegregating the Dollar." Additionally, he has appeared numerous times on ABC World News and CNN as a commentator of business and world affairs, again pretending to know what the heck he is talking about. Mr. Leffall is currently a the Associate Editor of Special Projects and content with FactSet Research Systems News and Media Relations Group. Lastly for the part where Mr. Leffall lives, he resides in a four cornered room where he stares at candles and his mind plays tricks on him. Read his articles and blogs please lest he go completely mad.
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