Consider: it's not the number of chickens in the world that matters but the number of people interested in paying money to learn about chickens.
Or, expressed another way, the difference between a suitable niche market for a small business and a non-suitable one is that a non-suitable one will never make enough money to be profitable.
Sometimes a niche market is unsuitable because too few people are interested in whatever the product or service is.
Sometimes the niche market is unsuitable because there are only enough people interested in whatever the product or service to support one small business - and someone's already doing it.
For instance, Jennifer Murtoff is a successful Urban Chicken Consultant (Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities Weblog).
Yes, really. It seems that more people than ever want to keep chickens in their back yard and some of them don't know much about doing it and need advice.
So would this be a suitable niche business for you?
Maybe. Maybe not. You'd definitely want to do some careful market research to discover the size of this potential niche market in your area. (After all, if you're going to make chicken-related house calls, your business is limited to your drivable area.)
And that's assuming you don't live near Jennifer. This is definitely one of those niche businesses that you have to cross off your list if anyone else in your area is doing it.
(Note that many municipalities have bylaws that make keeping chickens in urban/residential yards illegal.)
More on Niche Marketing
- How to Find and Master a Niche Market
- How to Find and Sell to Your Target Market
- Defining Your Niche Market (About.com Marketing)
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