Startup Tip #4: Be More Niche
This is the 4th in a series of startup tip posts. Read the previous ones at these links.
- Startup tip #1: Passion makes perfect
- Startup tip #2: Validation is key
- Startup tip #3: Ideas don’t matter, execution does
All will be short, and I’m hoping other founders and future founders will find some or all of them helpful.
Which of these interests you the most:
- A dating app for anyone
- A dating app for pet owners
- A dating app for border collie agility enthusiasts
If you are a border collie agility enthusiast looking to meet someone, I’m betting you said (3), especially if you feel that Tinder and Bumble are not meeting the needs of border collie agility enthusiasts.
As startup founders, we tend toward to think we will create an app for everyone, but that isn’t wise or practical. Even Facebook, the quintessential “app for everyone” started off with a niche focus, catering only to students at Harvard.
Agility (not the dog kind), is the main advantage startups have compared to their corporate competitors. We can quickly adapt to the changing needs of a tiny niche group. The smaller the group, the better a startup can cater to them and the less likely a big corporation will even bother.
And once you conquer that niche, you can expand out ready to do battle with the big players.
Your generic ridesharing app probably can’t compete with Uber and Lyft right now.
But the next “Uber for owners of oversized dogs” might be a unicorn!
