[VLM]

"Unless your product is niche to small fishing companies, this advice may not be the best."

Yet the competition space for very young rich urban american white kids making products for very young rich urban american white kids is hyper crowded, and in "rural fishing communities" the marketplace is apparently nearly empty, so the odds of a big success appear much better.

There's a fad now of "home automation" as defined by a small ARM box with a thermometer and a microphone for $100 that does pretty much the same as the 20 competitors... you have a less than 1 in 20 chance of being the top dog alpha winner. On the other hand AFAIK there is no competition for "www.rate.your.diesel.fishing.boat.mechanic.com" social network shopping for diesel fuel filter group buy advice or whatever. And that idea only took ten seconds, I'm sure actually trying would result in better ideas.

Your odds of competing are higher if you stay in the city and follow (key word, "follow") the pack. Which is awesome if your goal is playing king of the hill and the sheer thrill of competition. On the other hand, if you want to make fat stacks of cash, you want the best odds of winning, not the best odds of being involved in an epic competition.

[thebenedict]

Just think! When you've built the app and captured 100% of the diesel fishing boat mechanic rating market, you'll make dozens - nay, hundreds - of dollars! Users could search, sort and filter all 6 diesel fishing boat mechanics in town!

I'm being sarcastic but you're right. I live in a small town (in a small country) and there are a lot of unmet needs that software could address, and minimal technical competition. The other side of the coin is that the market is small, and capturing lots of geographically disparate niche markets is hard. Even nth runner up success in Home Automation for Rich People in Big Cities is a lot of money.

Innovating in small markets is fun and part of the reason why I'm here, but big markets are competitive for a reason. The adages about small startups being just as much work as big ones, and owning 1% of $10^9 being better than 10% of $10^6, still apply.

[VLM]

Oh I wouldn't say its a small market...

Some googling around shows 8 million people in NYC. Figure about 1% are in the 1%, so you've got maybe 80K possible customers to split among all home automation startups.

On the other hand, some googling around shows 4 million commercial fishing boats worldwide. If your diesel boat engine microphone troubleshooting crowdsourced social network repair app drew in only 10% of ship owners, that would be a 5x bigger hit than the entire home automation marketplace. Also don't forget that ship owners who don't have money are what are called former ship owners... these guys have serious cash or they wouldn't be throwing money into a hole in the water like boat owners do.

[scourge]

you're right. go find a country where producers and true capitalists are rewarded and powerful, instead of just the middlemen and managers, and you'll be a millionaire.

That time will come. And once technology starts being targets are making these SMEs (fishing boats, smallholders, etc) lives easier, the world will make a big shift for the better.

[TheCoelacanth]

That might make small towns better if you want to start a "lifestyle business" instead of a VC funded startup.

[xianshou]

100% of epsilon is still epsilon.