RS069: Exploring Opportunities with Offline Customer Based Businesses

Today Dave and I are exploring the world of ‘offline’ business.  We’re looking at technologies, niches, and customers who are a bit different than the world many of us live in each day in the online business world.

With this change is both a spectrum of new opportunities and challenges.  There are several big upsides to this business area, but also a few things that could potentially be quite difficult.

Big thanks to Bryan Marbles of Amazelaw for his insights into how he’s been able to tap in the legal niche, a great example of one of these offline focused niches.

Also a big shoutout to friends of the show Harry and Ted from Moraware.

Here are what we believe are the Pros and Cons of approaching an industry that typically has offline based customers:

Pros

• More money in some industries (e.g. construction, legal)
• Established channels of contact (i.e. walking into an office)
• Marketing competition may be less sophisticated
• Solutions may require less technical sophistication and more good-old-fashioned automation due to “behind-the-curve” nature of niche

Cons

• Harder to reach audience online
• Requires more patience to connect
• Very skeptical of new ideas/techniques/marketing
• Harder to find the problems online
• May require in-depth market knowledge to find unique/untapped problems

Would be really interested to hear more examples from listeners about how they’ve tackled these types of industries.  Shoot us a message at podcast@roguestartups.com and we’ll share your stories and lessons on the next episode.