Step One: Pick an Affordably Reachable Niche Market When I was younger ... I [didn’t] want to be pigeonholed ... Basically, now you want to be pigeonholed. It’s your niche. —JOAN CHEN, actress; appeared in The Last Emperor and Twin Peaks CC eating demand is hard. Filling demand is much easier. Don’t create a product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find a market—define your customers—then find or develop a product for them. I have been a student and an athlete, so I developed products for those markets, focusing on the male demographic whenever possible. The audiobook I created for college guidance counselors failed because I have never been a guidance counselor. I developed the subsequent speed-reading seminar after realizing that I had free access to students, and the business succeeded because —being a student myself —I understood their needs and spending habits. Be a member of your target market and don’t speculate what others need or will be willing to buy. Start Small, Think Big Some people are just into lavish dwarf entertainment. —DANNY BLACK (42”), part-owner of Shortdwarf.com2> Danny Black rents dwarfs as entertainment for $149 per hour. How is that for a niche market? It is said that if everyone is your customer, then no one is your customer. If you start off aiming to sell a product to dog- or car-lovers, stop. It’s expensive to advertise to such a broad market, and you are competing with too many products and too much free information. If you focus on how to train German shepherds or a restoration product for antique Fords, on the other hand, the market and competition shrink, making it less expensive to reach your customers and easier to charge premium pricing. BrainQUICKEN was initially designed for students, but the market proved too scattered and difficult to reach. Based on positive feedback from student-athletes, I relaunched the product as BodyQUICK and tested advertising in magazines specific to martial artists and powerlifters. These ar