Dear Emmanuel,
In my last email to you, I ran you through
And then I promised to touch on each of these 7 steps, one after the other, in
my next emails.
Well, today I want to touch on the first step:
Find a market. A want. Something lacking in your market.
In page 62 of my book Small Business Big Money, I wrote:
“…I am more concerned about the market. About the “WHO”. What is that
thing LACKING that people are ready to pay more money for? Once you
discover that, then you can start thinking of the kind of business to do. Not
the other way around.”
THIS paragraph sums up the secret to deciding on what business to start and
whether it would succeed wildly or not.
But instead of researching the market to find what is lacking and what
people want – what they are willing and ready to pay their hard cash for,
what you see most people do is make a list of already businesses that they
believe people are making a lot of money from.
Unfortunately these are usually oversaturated businesses and niches.
When you think from the angle of products and services, instead of from the
angles of existing untapped markets, you begin to come up with boring
business ideas like makeup artistry, car wash, nightclub, thrift wears,
barbershop, spa, hotel, skincare, etc.
Of course these are businesses where people make a lot of money, but must
you join the competition in an industry with thousands of whales and sharks
and millions of smaller fishes, when you’re just starting out?
My personal story of how I started NairaBET is a perfect example of
launching a business based on what the market has revealed that they want
but is lacking.
Little wonder we have generated tens and tens of billions of Naira in revenue
over the years.
I won’t bore you with the entire story from beginning to end, but the
summary is that I was introduced to sports betting abroad by my brother and
really enjoyed playing it.
It looked to me like a good opportunity for Nigerians to make extra money
while also having fun from betting online so I created an information product
teaching people about it.
I made millions of Naira from the ebook and all was fine. I was ready to move
on to the next idea until people kept disturbing me weeks after launching the
info product that they needed my help to make payments to the platforms I
listed. Some were ready to drop over a thousand dollars.
This then revealed to me that people would be happy to have such a
platform in Nigeria where they can predict sports outcomes and bet on it.
BOOM, I decided to create the platform and it was named NairaBet. The rest
is history.
This is how I think about creating businesses.
All you have to do is remain aware of people’s wants and problems and
choose the ones you are able or willing to solve. Then solve it. Just be sure
it’s a “starving crowd” you’re choosing to solve the problem for.
That is, they so much desire the solution that no matter how poorly
packaged it is, they’ll throw money at you to have it.
This can only happen when you have products or services that are novel,
exciting and satisfy people’s WANTS. Not needs.
It is when you’re competing in already established industries and niches that
packaging becomes a necessary headache.
Make sure to read Chapter 2 of Small Business Big Money to learn more on
this, especially the two lessons I shared to help you decide on the kind of
business to do.
And if for some reason you don’t have the book, find it through this link:
https://smallbusinessbigmoney.ng/
Talk later,
Akin Alabi
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