A Legendary Entrepreneurial Difference

For Praxis this month I’ve also been reading a book called Niche Down. It’s about “how to become legendary by being different” (Niche Down, 0). It’s been a convicting read concerning how to create great businesses, and what makes a business fail or succeed. I enjoyed the read, it helped me understand the business world better, and made me think about the problems in our world and what potential solutions could be.

Many businesses pop up in every field, from clothing to restaurants, to tech and beyond.

But what creates staying power?

Niching down.

Admittedly the first thing I notated in the book was a statistic that mentioned that we’re at the lowest levels of entrepreneurship in American history. This is interesting… and kind of makes me want to work against this statistic, but there’s a good way and a bad way to do this.

Niching down involves looking at what makes a business different instead of trying to focus on what makes it better. That is since everyone wants to claim to have the best there will always be a product that someone likes better than yours. So how is a business to have a better chance at success? By creating their own unique concept, or niche.

This is where the narrative turns to think about becoming a category “king” as a business. This means creating your own, niche, that may seem smaller at first but allows you to be genuinely different by solving a new problem. You, therefore, create a new market category and become the original – the one your future competitors will copy. By becoming a category king you are creating the game, that means you have a far greater chance of winning the game; rather than trying to jump onto someone else’s game board. The wrote the rules in that case and you would otherwise have to follow them.

You have to create value for consumers while remembering that “value is in the eye of the beholder”  (Niche Down, 91), and if someone likes what you’re creating more they will go to you. Even if you’re fulfilling a niche need that people may not have initially realized their need for. If you show them the need and present a great solution, they can hardly help but seeing the value. Forge a new road in the marketplace, and consumers will enjoy taking the trip.

I appreciated that this book explained an odd situation to me. I’ve always seen so many versions of every kind of businesses and wondered if they all could succeed. The truth? They don’t have a chance unless they provide a niche solution, or they’re already the category king. So, if you want to start a business, remember to find a new angle or a new problem, and own your new category, by niching down.