Find your next business
Here's a tip I just love. I call it "Analogy your way to a new business."
Okay, so maybe it doesn't roll off the tongue, but I think you'll Iike it anyway.
Everyone loves eBay.
Everyone knows what eBay does: sells stuff via auction via the Internet.
Everything from baseball cards, to Boxsters.
You're probably wondering, "There's no way I can compete with eBay."
And you'd be right.
Amazon tried.
Yahoo tried.
Other companies you've never heard of have tried (and probably died.)
Now, I get an email today from a company called LabX.
What do they do?
"LabX is an online auction and classified ad marketplace for scientific and hi-tech equipment. Think eBay for scientists and engineers (business to business)," according to General Manager Ken Piech.
In other words, LabX took a very successful business model. But instead of battling head to head in the wonderful world of Madonna memorabilia, they found a niche and found success.
This is a great formula for success that you can use to your benefit. Let me know when you do!
Dan Janal
Your Fearless PR LEADER
PR LEADS Expert Resource Network
www.prleads.com
952-380-1554
Okay, so maybe it doesn't roll off the tongue, but I think you'll Iike it anyway.
Everyone loves eBay.
Everyone knows what eBay does: sells stuff via auction via the Internet.
Everything from baseball cards, to Boxsters.
You're probably wondering, "There's no way I can compete with eBay."
And you'd be right.
Amazon tried.
Yahoo tried.
Other companies you've never heard of have tried (and probably died.)
Now, I get an email today from a company called LabX.
What do they do?
"LabX is an online auction and classified ad marketplace for scientific and hi-tech equipment. Think eBay for scientists and engineers (business to business)," according to General Manager Ken Piech.
In other words, LabX took a very successful business model. But instead of battling head to head in the wonderful world of Madonna memorabilia, they found a niche and found success.
This is a great formula for success that you can use to your benefit. Let me know when you do!
Dan Janal
Your Fearless PR LEADER
PR LEADS Expert Resource Network
www.prleads.com
952-380-1554
3 Comments:
Hey Dan,
Thanks for the great blog...
This post about LabX clicked with me, so I wanted to introduce you to a startup project I'm working on called IGotNewsForYou (http://www.igotnewsforyou.com).
It's very much a startup, so you won't find much there (except there is a writing contest for anyone interested), but it came about by looking at things that were done well and also things done badly in the gift card and e-card industries.
Not quite taking a great business model and refining it per se, but not totally dissimilar either.
IGotNewsForYou (once launched in April 2006) will allow a person to send an online page (or printed poster) of satirical, personalized content. So if I was going to send you a page, I would fill in a form on the site with some personal information of yours that I know (name, location, interests, etc.) and the system would generate a web page in a newspaper-style. Each story would be personalized with your information (along with mine, and other things I know about you). I could then pick which stories I thought were the best and send you an email so you could access the page yourself (or have a printer posted and shipped).
While it's not quite a niche of an existing market like your LabX example, we did look at the market of gift cards and say, "What can we do different and better that will address some of the pain people feel when they shop for cards?" And, "how can we make this more interesting and funnier than most e-cards that people send around almost like spam?" And IGotNewsForYou was essentially born.
Certainly we don't propose to combat Hallmark, but I think we can carve out an interesting niche, mostly amongst men, who enjoy sending around jokes but hate shopping for cards.
Keep up the great work! Thanks!
Hi Dan,
You have such great comments/ideas. As a professional organizer and wanting to specialize in small businesses - but wanting to stand out - I thought - Think Martha Stewart for the office.
What do you think?!!
Elizabeth Hagen
www.ElizabethHagen.com
Hi Dan,
You have such great comments/ideas. As a professional organizer and wanting to specialize in small businesses - but wanting to stand out - I thought - Think Martha Stewart for the office.
What do you think?!!
Elizabeth Hagen
www.ElizabethHagen.com
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