Looking to Startup a Business – Try Something Different!

America’s markets are clogged with competitors in many general areas such as retail, transportation, and general services. This is especially true in logistical fields like transportation and storage; the nation is dotted with warehouses and trucks putting goods on the road between suppliers, manufacturers, and customers.

If you are looking to start your own business, you can have great success by trying something different than the heard. Usually by taking a “clogged” area and putting a slight twist on it, you can find a niche that is almost entirely unexplored.

Specialized Business Example

Let’s take the example of storage. We have all seen self-storage, warehouses, and the like. You’ve got normal warehouse storage, cold storage, and cold trucking. But what if you combine these ideas in new and unique ways? As an example, Pacific BioStorage combines all of these into one company: storage, transport, management, and cold chain logistics of biological materials at any temperature. See how this could be a multi-million dollar idea that serves a niche market?

Layers of Laws and Regulations

Most readers of MoneyAhoy are US based, and we all know that there are more laws and regulations than you can shake a stick at. When it comes to starting a new business, it pays to consider these in your business plans. Will laws or regulations get in the way of your plans? If so, you may elect to move onto another idea. However, if you are able to gain a new or unique understanding of law and regulations, you may be able to find a unique way to work within these to offer products or services to customers. This is where you get a chance to put your brain to work.

In the example I gave above, companies will need to develop considerable plans to comply with laws and regulations relating to humane animal treatment, biohazards, live animals, and police evidence. In this case, the company is treading in perhaps the most legally fragile fields there are. There is everything from the risk of human exposure to pathogens, along with animal welfare and the integrity of criminal cases on the table with this area. Not something to be entered into too quickly J

Labor Market Issues and Hiring the Right People

Some businesses can hire most anyone to run a register or push carts. I am guessing that your new LLC or corporation will probably not be one of these. Hiring the right people for your company will be paramount! If a labor market does not have the presence of workers with high qualifications that match what you are looking for, it can be nearly impossible to staff a new enterprise. Give consideration to our new “electronic economy” when making hiring plans. If your business is in the middle of nowhere, that doesn’t mean your workers have to be! Why not hire remote workers if this fits in with your business model?

In the example I gave above, this company cannot hire just anybody and then train on the job. When most biostorage companies have openings, their process of identifying good candidates must dig much more deeply and qualify far more rigidly than that used for ordinary freight movers. In addition to commercial driver’s licenses, physical ability, and organizational skills, workers must also exhibit the ability to adhere to rigid regulatory standards, stringent paperwork requirements, and handling needs of fragile–and potentially dangerous–containers of biological materials. Obviously for this case, remote workers are simply not an option.

It pays to take your time and hire the right people for the job versus just finding “warm bodies.” I have heard this lesson repeated over and over again – quality over quantity J One of the most important things you can do as a business owner is to take your time and hire the right people. For a new company, the quality of staff with either make or break things in the first couple of years.

Sustained Customer Bases

If you go with a digital or virtual business model, then your task of finding customers for the long term may be easier – your physical borders are non-existent. With any fixed-location business, you must be assured of the availability of customers over the long term in your locale. With a specialized business, this is even more important, because a specialized business firm will have difficulty to expand if their local customer base erodes to quickly.