Business Opportunities Weblog

Sell Boring Stuff: People Need It

By on February 4, 2013 in Ask the Readers

Every day my inbox is full of people with over-the-top business ideas. Someone always wants to know if I think their business will fly. Some of them will work, for sure, but here’s an idea: instead of trying to figure out what flashy, hip, and cutting edge business to create, why not just start something boring that people actually need.

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Comic strip via Doonesbury.

boring doonesbury

Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

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  • Andres

    didn’t get the point….

  • Matt

    I think the point was- you don’t need an amazing new idea to succeed in business, you just need to sell something there is demand for in a way that allows you to capture enough customers to make it viable. Or, put another way, 99% of the money making businesses out there are selling stuff we’ve all heard of and which won’t make the front page of any newspaper but they still constitute good businesses.

  • Andres

    Yes, but, what kind of stuff…? What is boring? won’t you’ll get duminished by those big companies that are actually selling boring stuff ? I’m not being pesismist, trust me I love business.

  • http://www.business-opportunities.biz Dane Carlson

    Andres, I think that’s a very different question, but but many people fear this same thing. They think “I just came up with a great idea for X, but why should I try to bring it to market because if I do, Google or Some Other Giant Company will just copy my innovation and spend more money marketing it. How can I compete with that?

    It’s not a valid excuse to just continue sitting in your cubicle all day, because it’s not realistic. Small scale entrepreneurs are like row boats. They may be slow, but they can maneuver quickly. Large companies are battleships — huge and intimidating, but they take miles and miles to turn and can’t pivot like a row boat. Plus, they take hundreds of crew members to operate, unlike the rowboat that can operate efficiently with just you.

  • Andres

    I agree that we have to move and not get intimidated by big companies, but since we were talking about boring products, there are more companies that sell boring products than there are that sell innovative products. I like the ideas in the blog, and this idea is good, but I think that the term boring may refer to products that are not innovative or “cool” like iPads or new inventions, but products that are usual but needed for everyone. But I think that the term “boring” is relative since for you to sell a product or products you have to like the area that you chose since for me computers are boring but for someone else computers are awesome and they dont find it “boring”. But you have to like what you sell or the area in which you are in to.

  • http://www.business-opportunities.biz Dane Carlson

    But I think that the term “boring” is relative

    Andres, absolutely! What’s boring for me, may be the your favorite thing.

    Luckily, that’s how capitalism works. I trade something that I own for something that you own, and hopefully we both think we got the better deal and came out ahead.

  • http://chrislikesit.webs.com Chris

    I like lots of nice things that we won’t have to trade. Look around to your heart’s content. We even have automotives under misc.

  • BigFish

    I own a company that deals in “boring” stuff. We clean and maintain carpets, air ducts, and power wash buildings and decks. Not too exciting but consistent, steady, growing income. I plan on starting another “boring” operation that sells small appliances and vacuums. Again, “boring”. A friend of mine is trying to get me into the concession business. “Boring” cash profits of about $800 per day.

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