07 Jul 2009, Posted by christie in Misc Bytes, 1 Comments

I see niches

In today’s often-scary economy and changing workplace, I think it’s smart to be agile and to be ready to pursue what you are gifted at and passionate about.  Or even if you’re totally happy at a great job that you love (I am), it’s still so satisfying to find a hobby/outlet that fits you perfectly and makes you jump out of bed on the weekend eager to get to it. It seems I am always pointing out to someone how they could have a small business on the side - especially a how-to blog.  I guess that’s part of my being addicted to blogs and blogging! Seems to me that if you wait to start your own website or other business until the day you get laid off, then it is too late and you can’t afford to wait and depend on earning a living at it.   But what if you start something slowly, working on it when you can – something you really pour yourself into?  That could be your supplemental income after you retire from your day job, or it might even be your full-time gig if the unexpected happens before that!

I have one friend who is an amazing cook.  She loves cooking, and says she has folders with recipes spilling out of them, and she is obsessed with checking for recipes on the internet.  She even gets up early each day to have some extra time to do that before work!   Well to me, since I’m blog-obsessed, the first thing I thought about when I heard that was that she could start right now and create a cooking website!  She has a good job, and of course I’d never suggest she leave it or work less hard at it, but I would think that if she ever had to change jobs or wanted a creative outlet, surely it would have to do with cooking.  She could cater or bake  -  or run a high-traffic food website.  

I have another friend who considers herself “unemployed” but she paints her and her husband’s house, does small repairs on the roof, as well as doing drywall and all sorts of other “handyman” jobs that most of us have to hire someone to do.  When she mentions being broke I always volunteer to be her very first painting customer!  But for now, she doesn’t want to do it, saying she’d be too slow and not a good value for me.  She is passionate about houses though, from repairing them to painting them to looking up every real estate ad, so maybe she will find another way to make her passion help her with her “broke” problem.

Niches are fascinating to me, and I always love to hear about how people found theirs, whether it’s a hobby or a career.  I guess that’s because my original field was biology, and creatures in nature have niches too!   It’s their position, their place in the community.   I realize that a niche as defined by niche marketers would be much more narrow than “food” or “houses” or “the interwebs,” but here I’m just talking about the niche where you fit perfectly in life, and the topic, broad or narrow, for which you have a passion. Do you know what your niche is?  Do you have more than one?