A few days back, an acquaintance called me to talk about his business. Our last conversation was a while ago. I remembered him being in the web and mobile application development business then.
This time, our conversation revolved around the digital marketing business. His recent work was about creating Instagram reels for local businesses.
When asked whether he moved away from web and mobile application development, he mentioned that he expanded his list of services.
The average ticket size was between INR 50,000 – INR 1,00,000 with a profit margin less than 20% and no sales pipeline.
The Problem
When asked, “What does your ideal customer look like?”, he mentioned that he didn’t want to restrict his services to specific markets.
Catering everyone may appear profitable. After all, you want to put all your skillets to use to make money. Sometimes, choosing a market can make you feel like you’re losing money on the table.
The problem is clear. Pursuing shinier things in the market is novelty. But the trade-off is that you will be seen as a generalist but not a specialist.
So, How Do You Solve?
During the early stage of business, it is important to identify who do we want to serve and what do we solve. This is called market specialization (niche selection).
Find what skills you’re great at, identify a problem worth solving using those skills and serve people who can’t afford to leave it unsolved.
Let me give you an example. Now, imagine you’re a SaaS founder with funding looking to build your next MVP to be launched in 60 days. Which business would you hire?
Consider the following positioning:
(A) Generalist
We help Business build software.
(B) Industry Niche
We help B2B business build software.
(C) Problem-specific Niche
We help funded B2B SaaS founders launch their first usable product in six weeks, without hiring a full engineering team. After launch, we provide ongoing product engineering so founders can focus on customers and growth.
The last positioning clearly tells who do you serve, what do you solve and emphasises a specific problem.
The way to get high value tickets is to identify the skills you’re great at, finding a problem you can solve using those skills, and serving people who desperately want the problems solved and the willingness to pay.
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