Niche 2 Win, Baby. | Hacker News Reader

Niche 2 Win, Baby.

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41 pointssachitgupta22 comments

This especially applies to bootstrapped products, where the only recipient of the profits is probably you.

Micro-niche could mean only ever getting 1000 customers to pay you $30 a month. Even if you had a few thousand a month in expenses, your personal income will be higher than 99% of people who play the startup lotto.

$30k a month is nice, as a sole or super small startup (under 3 people) or if you are in a developing country. However these are the often derided "lifestyle businesses". i for one support these types of businesses

Just an FYI: if you can tell a compelling growth story, a business which presently has $30k a month of revenue could potentially be an attractive target for investment. If it is growing organically it is only a wee bit away from hitting $100k a month in revenue, at which point it could quite reasonably sustain an eight figure exit. (500 Startups, for one, would love to hear from you if you have a business on that trajectory.)

That said: there are worse fates in life than to be condemned to running a business which just can't seem to break through $30k a month in revenue.

I think that the point is that if you have $30k/month, you have the possibility of using your current app as a structure to widen your reachable market.

When Stormpulse first launched we only covered hurricanes in the Atlantic and didn't have radar. That focus allowed us to create a product 10x better for that "narrow" concern (still possessed by millions) but made it insanely difficult (read: neigh impossible) to have good conversations with investors.

I don't know how this will go yet since I am just planning the process of talking to investors right now but the approach I am looking t taking is:

1) Here's what we want to do.

2) Here's what we have done so far.

3) We can get there.

I don't know how this will go yet but it's the strategy I am looking at.

If you have revenues and you aren't profitable, don't bother. If you don't have revenues, it might be worth a shot, unless you're a first-time entrepreneur. If you're profitable, go get 'em.

How is Stormpulse doing these days? I've seen posts about it on HN for ages. Fascinating product/market and story. I'd love an update.

Thanks. I just posted an update to the saga here (spoiler: tough road, but it ends well): http://wensing.tumblr.com/post/26830276239/bootstrapping-sto...

Thanks for the link. Love your story. Can't wait to hear about the next chapter.

Man. What an awesome story. May we ask who the angel is?

The one highlighted in the story is Mark Dumas. https://angel.co/mark-dumas http://angel.co/stormpulse

Ah, neat stuff. I don't use AngelList much. Apparently I am coinvestors with your investors on other stuff.

I really enjoyed the bit where you stayed up all night, redesigned, and bit the bullet. I am finding, repeatedly, that the thing to do is that which was previously uncontemplatable.

Yes. I never expected to do it, but I was finally, completely convinced it was the right thing to do, aided by the fact that, at least at that moment, it was the only thing that I could live with.

Dave, not sure whether you read HN; I have a question for you - I believe what you are describing are "feature" startups. Which of course are derided by everyone. Now you can always say we are going to be a product and then company by covering growing beyond niche. But lot of times people don't believe in your grand vision as it sounds BS. So how do you convince someone that you are going to grow beyond niche? Or niche is just the foot in the door of market?

They're derided because they won't be billion dollar companies, but if you look at long-running "family" businesses, most of these exist because they own some particular niche.

They're not exciting, but they are worth pursuing if that's your passion.

they won't be billion dollar companies

Huh, what? You can't be a billion dollar company by focusing on a niche? Is transporting crude oil from Saudi Arabia to the Americas a niche?

They're not exciting

I guess it depends if you can get excited about being massively profitable and making your customers really happy by delivering shoes or lightbulbs, or if it always has to be a shiny photo app.

You're basically talking about the best case scenario. Typically it's much more mundane.

Most of these niche companies aren't exciting to outsiders. They're doing things that seem ordinary like making labels or floor mats for cars. Obviously some people might be really motivated by such things.

There's nothing wrong with boring. Often boring is profitable, predictable, and less prone to disruption than these "shiny" apps that are often a flash in the pan, huge one day, sold for billions the next, and forgotten the week after.

I find it easy to get excited about hard problems regardless of what the company actually does externally. Particularly if that means internally there's a wealth of cash in return for said hard problem solving.

I think you'd have to admit that shiny apps flashing in the pan, huge one day, sold for billions the next, and forgotten the week after is also the 'best case scenario'.

I don't think there's a necessary correlation between focusing on a narrow customer segment and only being a "feature" startup. Stormpulse has never been a "feature" startup but we absolutely embraced a niche to get started.

He does have an HN account: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=davemc500hats ...

This is cool to hear from investors. Attacking a niche is one of the easiest ways to get early traction. And the best time to go big is once you have a couple wins in the bag.

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