Many entrepreneurs struggle to come up with good ideas. It only takes one, however, to lay the foundation of a profitable business.
Here's a tip: instead of trying to think of the exact, final idea that will be the basis of your business, it might help to start out surveying the field. In other words, begin by looking at general areas or industries rather than focused, tight subjects.
Start at the wide end of the funnel and narrow your choices and focus as you move down the funnel toward the small end. There will be a lot of areas or industries that you'll be able to eliminate right off the bat to narrow the field.
Let me tell you about some general categories of Internet business that have historically been of great interest to lots of customers. These are not niches - they're just wide areas or subjects that have proven to hold many potential prospects.
Here are some of the more widely followed Internet subjects (not listed in any particular order of importance):
1. Travel. There are a lot of sub-categories to travel that hold great promise for Internet businesses like outdoor recreation (biking, hiking, camping, fishing, etc), taking cruises, cross country sight seeing, RVing, foreign travel, and on and on. Folks like to hear about personal experiences and impressions of other travelers rather than taking a tour operator's word or reading a company brochure.
2. Golden living. Information, ideas, and places that are of interest to seniors. There are millions of baby-boomers nearing retirement and they are not going to abandon their computers for rocking chairs. Oh, and they have money too!
3. Home planning, decorating, improving, etc. Lots of do-it-yourselfers will keep this topic hot for a long time to come. The Internet is the perfect medium for seeing what great concepts and ideas have been incorporated into their homes by others.
4. Health care and beauty products. These are actually separate subjects but I will lump them together here. I can tell you that there is continued great potential for innovative business ideas in this space. Here's another tip: there are more women than men online these days - and they are not shy about shopping online.
5. Comparison shopping. There are many different business models and strategies in this space. Portals, directories, top ten lists, recommendation web sites, product review sites, and a lot of other strategies fit into this category. Many of these methods utilize affiliate sales, "Adsense" type marketing, and pay-per-click links to generate business revenue.
6. Small electronics. Included in this subject are sales for CDs, music subscriptions, digital camers, iPods, camcorders, cell phones, DVDs, and on and on. Is there a more popular subject on the Internet? Sometime, just for fun, go to eBay and check out the number of auctions for all these items within this subject - it will blow you away!
7. How-to information. Whenever I have a question about how to do something or where to find something, I turn to the Internet. Millions and millions of folks do the same thing and the audience is growing every day. Think of the information you have a special passion for or knowledge about - it may be an excellent candidate for the subject of your new Lone Wolf business.
8. Hobbies and pets. Again, I'll lump these together even though they are their own subjects. I have an idea why these subjects are so popular on the Internet. I think it's because the audience somehow feels a kinship or friendship with others in their hobby even though they have never met face to face. They feel like they're among friends when they chat, or post to forums, or participate in surveys and feedback. I could be wrong.
9. Landscaping, design, maintenance, gardening, farming. Again, a huge number of people go online to find answers to their questions in these subjects. It's a way to tap into expertise and solid information that is often hard to come by conveniently and locally. One of the nice aspects of this subject is the fact that it lends itself to deep, deep specialization. There are a lot of targeted customers for every variety of flower, every plant, vegetable and tree.
10. Money-making. This subject has taken it's knocks with all the hype and get-rich-quick advertising that is so commonplace; nevertheless, there is a great and growing interest among Internet viewers in subjects like investing, the stock market, job placement, work-at-home, working moms, self-employment, eBaying, franchises, career development, and on and on.
Hopefully, one of these broad subjects will strike your interest and lead you down the funnel toward your future speciality subject. Good luck!
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