Ask HN: Ok, I have found a Niche... or have I? | Hacker News Reader

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?

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Can 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/

The old content is still there, you just need to know where to look: http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/training/2009day01.php

You can probably guess the URL for the next 30 days from that.

Can 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?

You 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.

Go and speak directly to a potential target user if you can, see what they have to say about it.

I 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.

What's the amount of money being spent in that niche?

I 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.

Depends. Do you intend to build a content based site, an application or something else entirely?

It 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.

Can 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.

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