Will Your Niche Make Money?

After you chose a niche at the end of the "Find Your Market Niche" module, you've spent another couple of hours (or perhaps more) investigating it. You've gotten an idea of how many people are in the niche from speaking with a mailing list broker and looking at the number of subscribers to niche-related magazines. You've uncovered problems and solutions you can focus on to create a profitable web site. You may not know it yet, but in future 20 minute tasks you'll discover that the magazines and mailing list brokers can provide you a way to contact members of your niche in order to advertise your site. You might consider that a bonus for your work.

Now, you have another decision to make. Is there enough there, in the way of numbers and problems and solutions, to justify continuing with this niche?

You probably want from twenty to sixty thousand people in a mailing list or magazine subscriptions to make your site profitable. If you have a LOT less, there may not be enough to support you. If you have a LOT more, you'll likely have a great deal of competition which will jack up your costs. But these numbers are just broad guidelines. You know your niche, the feel you have for your idea (if you've got one), and how much you need to make, money-wise, from your site. You have to balance all that with the numbers.

The decision is completely yours. Is this the right niche? Is this a GO or a NO GO?

(Making decisions like this is what makes you truly the "boss." But don't worry, if you make a mistake, it may cost you time and money but it's not the end of the world. Anyway, go with what your intuition says. If it doesn't say anything, review what's in your folders.)

Your Options

Before you make your decision, let's talk for just a moment about your options.

1. You can quit. You might be saying to yourself, "I've put something like six hours into this and I'm not sure I want to do any more. Maybe having a web business is not for me." If you choose that, we wish you good luck with whatever else you decide to do.
2. You can go back and choose a different niche. If that's your choice, you should return to your "Market Niche" folder to review the other niches and select a different one.
3. If your niche is too small, you can expand it by removing some of the constraints you created earlier. For example, if you chose "black women aged 21-25" for your niche, you could expand it to "all black women" or "black women aged 18-35" and see what happens.
4. If your niche is too big, you can narrow it. For example, if you chose "Star Trek fans" for your niche you could narrow it to "teenage male Star Trek fans."

If you choose either of the latter two alternatives, you may want to call your list broker again to see what happens to the number of available names on his list. Or, quite possibly, you already talked with him about that earlier.

Your 20 Minute Task

Think through the issue of whether this is the right niche for you. If it's not, go back and pick another niche, then repeat the "Know Your Niche" tasks for it. If it needs enlarging or narrowing, work on it.

Whatever option you choose, you need to have a niche before you go on with more work.

When you're done, write the name of your niche on the outside of your "Niche Characteristics" folder.

Congratulations! Don't make too big a deal of it, but consider taking someone you love out for a tiny celebration.