Market Trends for Word Search Maker Let’s take a deeper look at the Word Search puzzle industry. The first and most obvious inspection is the interest in Word Search puzzles themselves. Are they on the rise or in decline? How fast? Is there any possible immediate disruption that would kill the industry overnight? The following charts offer some insight into overall trends. Seems slightly volatile but in a small uptrend Seems stable although in slight decline Strong steady decline in Britain Stable market in US Comparative strength, volume, and trends of the variations on Word Search Maker What does this tell us? Word Search puzzles are in decline in Britain, but fairly OK in the US. I would not target the Word Search Maker market in Britain because of the staedy decline, however because I am based in the US and am targeting the steady US demographic I feel safe continuing . One interesting thing to note is the massive interest in “Word Search Maker” from South Korea. Here’s a great showcase of an unhealthy market: Strong decline in South Korea Example of an industry dying overnight in a region of South Korea Only place in South Korea with any interest is Seoul, which has stabilized for the most part. Compare this to the healthy US market Steady Recurring Traffic spread fairly homogenously across the country See how much healthier the interest in the US market is? It’s not only spread fairly geographically evenly, but it looks to be maintaining some level of stability. One thing that worries me is...
Read MoreIntroduction to the Word Search Maker The inspiration behind creating a word search maker was Patrick McKenzie’s success with Bingo Card Creator. In brief summary, he scaled a website that made bingo cards to $40,000 in revenue per year over the last few years. Pairing that seed of thought with my newly found interest in the Google Keyword Tool, I started to brainstorm. A key factor of the commercial indicator is the word “creator”, so the brainstorming focused on products that could be made or created via software. It was also important to create something that could be sold upfront immediately (no email-lead gen or long-term drip marketing, the target is to find interested customers right away). List of potential ideas that led to Word Search Maker The screenshot shows that I searched for the words [creator] and [maker], which force an “exact match type” which means the words in the results are the exact terms searched. Results are sorted by “Local Monthly Searches” which in this case means searches within the US. Google Keyword Tool is an important topic all to itself and will be covered in another post. Here’s my gut-check reaction to those results (or skip below for the analysis): 1. Collage Maker – Massive volume, significant competition. Could be a fun hackathon project. 2. Windows Movie Maker – Nope. 3. Crossword Puzzle Maker – Sounds a LOT like bingo card creator. I like this. 4. Graffiti Creator – Creating graphics can get icky. Not a market I want to enter. 5. Movie Maker – Probaly related to Windows Movie Maker. Not a...
Read MoreThis Post Will Teach You: You will learn how to analyze business opportunities The three checkpoints needed to evaluate a business idea Opportunity analysis helps us separate when to take action from when to keep looking. A methodical approach to opportunity analysis will help improve consistency and thoroughness across niche businesses. The aim of this is to be able to lay out ideas side by side in order to draw better correlations and insights from one business to another. Overall, a consistent approach to opportunity analysis will provide more meaningful takeaway lessons for future ventures, and ideally improve the overall thoroughness of analysis. The product cycle of each niche will cover the following five phases: 1. Contextual Analysis This is the environment that the idea occurs within. Specifically, what are the enabling factors of this niche business? For example, an app idea requires the context of smartphone penetration in your target demographic. Context analysis can occur either before or after idea formation. The most important factor here is the trend of the context. Are smartphones with data plans on the rise or decline? How does that affect the business idea in 6 months? 6 years? Does the market still exist? Do you believe it will grow or shrink? Context lays the foundation for the business. Deliverables: What technologies and factors make this possible? What is the trend? How long will this niche last? 2. Product Ideation This is the process of brainstorming product ideas. In three steps product ideation involves an idea generation phase, an elimination and refinement phase, and a declaration of vision. The most important...
Read MoreAbout Vik
Hi I'm Vik, founder of Campus Maps. I enjoy building set-and-forget niche products. You can view my journey here as I make and test hypotheses, post results, and analyze what happens in a data-driven fashion.