From New Niche to Global Brand: Transform Your Business Today
One of the biggest mistakes made by business owners is assuming that their market is rigid. They get complacent and think that once they have carved out their place their work is done.
However when it comes to business there is no time to rest on your laurels. Thanks to the speed at which technology is evolving, markets are more fluid than ever. Keeping up with these changes is vital and unless you do, your business may fall by the wayside.
For example, businesses now need to ensure that their websites are optimized for use with mobile devices. Recent studies* have shown that more and more of us are accessing the internet on mobile devices as opposed to laptops or desktop PC’s. However, for websites to work fully on mobile devices they have to be optimized for it. If your site doesn’t function properly on a mobile then your customers are more likely to move on to your competitors!
We cannot always predict the direction the market will go in, but it is pretty obvious that market changes are not going to slow down anytime soon.
Turn that great idea into a business NOW!
‘Start-up’ has been a bit of a buzzword in the last 18 months. This is because an increasing number of businesses are suddenly popping up. Why is this? Well these start-up ventures are becoming possible due to additional resources being made available to entrepreneurs. These include grants, loans and other funding available specifically to new businesses, plus a whole heap of online support.
For the majority of these start-up’s, very little actual equipment is required. A phone, a laptop/Mac and access to the World Wide Web is all some businesses need to get off the ground. Even better, thanks to huge competition by phone, broadband and computing companies, these elements of your business don’t have to cost the earth either! You don’t even need an office in the very early days!
Size doesn’t matter (honest!)
‘Niche’ sounds like it should be applied only to very small businesses. In actual fact, although most start that way, a niche actually refers to a specialized market, says the team at Liquid Brand Agency.
And just because something starts small doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. We all begin life as tiny babies and we have to grow and learn. Some of us grown and learn a bit quicker than others, and that can be the same for businesses. Some experience gradual growth while others have a stratospheric growth spurt.
Take for example, Instagram. Now just over 5 years ago Instagram didn’t even exist (it was created in October 2010). Now it has over 200 MILLION** users! What started as a niche idea has quickly turned into a global social media platform. Not only that but it has created niche businesses of its own.
Bloggers, photographers and more are using the platform to launch their own enterprises. Danielle Bernstein, a 22yr old blogger, is now very well known on Instagram. In fact she has over 1.2 million followers and that is why top fashion brands now pay her to post pictures of their products on her Instagram page. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar* she stated that she could earn between $5,000 and $15,000 for posting one image. Now that’s what you call a profitable niche business!
In all seriousness though, stories such as Danielle’s are becoming more frequent as people find a niche and capitalizing on it!
The Future
Even with the help of a crystal ball, no one can predict what the future holds for any market. Here at Hike, if you had told us ten years ago that the point of sale software we have now created would be remotely possible, we would never have believed you!
What is for sure is that what may appear as a tiny niche now could be a seriously profitable business by 2025. Now is the time to take that great idea, exploit the fact that now is the best time to start a new business. If you roll with the market, the sky is the limit and your niche business could be the next big thing!
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References:
* http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/21/majority-of-digital-media-consumption-now-takes-place-in-mobile-apps/
** http://blog.instagram.com/post/80721172292/200m
***http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/a10949/how-bloggers-make-money-on-instagram/
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