Mistake #11: I thought knowing who I could help was enough.
I came into WeSupply with 5 years of retail experience.
I understood the problems.
But which part of that market could we build a business around?
I liked enterprise clients.
They had big problems and the budget to solve them.
But reaching them was hard, and sales cycles could take years.
We needed customers who bought faster to fund the gaps between contracts.
Micro-businesses offered a different tradeoff.
They were easier to find, but often lacked the budget for our product.
Here's what I missed:
Your niche is the group you choose to build your business around.
The market has to work on 4 dimensions:
Help: A shared problem your experience and product can solve well.
Like: People whose industry and way of working you enjoy.
Pay: A market that values the result enough to support your price.
Reach: A group you can consistently find and get in front of.
Solution: We built the business around the middle: fashion retailers with 80–150 stores.
Big enough to have the problem and the budget.
Small enough to decide in months, not years.
And easy to find, one door after another on the main street.
Make this choice once, then build your marketing, sales, and delivery around it.
So if you want to do this yourself, list the customer groups you could serve.
Compare them through Help, Like, Pay, and Reach.
Choose the group where those overlap.
Finish by naming who they are, what you help them with, and where they gather.
Secret Sauce: Choose the people you can build a business around.
Best,
Virgil
PS: Mistake #12: One needed a speedboat. One needed a life raft.