Promising Markets for a Startup Company

Konstantinos asks: "So far, I have worked as an IT manager in various projects, but I am fed up with someone else getting all the money out of my work. So, I want to do something on my own. Obviously, I don't want to take on the big guys as I will not have the resources or the time to be antagonistic, and I have to go after something totally different. I have made a small market research, but I don't want to risk my hard-earned money on something that is destined to flop. I had some ideas about niche markets that IT hasn't really touched, like agriculture. In your opinion, which are the most promising markets, for a one/two person startup company to try and tackle? I know that there is a risk in everything, and I understand that the IT business is under a global crisis, but I also know that there are some markets (esp. niche markets) that haven't had a significant hit in revenue due to the crisis. I would like to try and hit those markets. I am not afraid of work and I know that I can do the job and do it well, if only I find what it is! Thanks for any help."

Comments

Agriculture

[MrResistor]

Agriculture is becoming automated quickly, especially irrigation. However, it simply isn't complex enough, nor does it need to be, to require IT personel.

It's a very tough market to sell to. The best pitch I've seen was basically "you can use this system to control irrigation automatically based on soil moisture and temperature", which is pretty damned cool if you're a farmer, but only requires a pentium that can boot Win95, and even that is only because the interface was written in VB.

Local NPO's

[Strange Ranger]

..are very likely in desperate need of help. Not too many Non-Profit Organizations have their own 50+ K a year IT person. They have Suzy the receptionist and Dan the accountant who know how to reboot things. Most NPO's that I've seen are caught in this expensive loop:

"We bought this tech to keep up with the world, we bought it piecemeal as we could afford it. It's a hodge-podge myriad of HW and SW that we can barely get to work most of the time. We can't afford to upgrade everything, and if we could we wouldn't know where to start. ROI? what is that?"

So if you could function as a for-profit IT outsource to enough of your local NPO's who can't afford their own in-house IT you'd likely make good money and be a regular hero. There's no billions in it, but it might be a great gig.

So do some in-depth market research in this area and report back here. Cuz now you owe me that. ;)

Re:Here are general directions that you can go to.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two ways to improve accounting software and marketing research software (this applies to other fields of applications as well):

1) Have your salesmen talk to accountants and market researchers, and give them questionaires and shit, and filter the info back to yourself on what features you should add or design changes you should make. This is very inefficient but it is the way it is mostly done, especially in the proprietary world.

2) Be an accountant or a market researcher, and write software for your own use. Don't think of selling it until it is something you find work impossible with out, and you have fixed all nagging annoyances. Then look into selling it. When selling it fails, GPL it and try to sell your services customizing it or teaching seminars on how to use it.

My advice is that you can't do 1) without having a big company and it's accompanying sales force infrastructure behind you. Thankfully, better software is produced by 2). However, that requires being in the right position. An added benefit of 2) is that if you are in such a position, you usually have two complementary careers, which is nice in a tough economy.

Where I live

[Znonymous Coward]

I live in Wichita, KS. There are a lot of small to medium sized business here. But, there aren't any sources of consultants for that market. Small businesses here are starving for IT help. I make quite a bit of $ catering to to them (on the side).