Due to the lack of jobs, I am now contemplating starting my own business - possibly a niche website. However, the problem is trying to find a good, profitable niche.

Just wondering, has anybody here tried to start their own busines? If so, how is it going? And how did you find a good niche?

I've been running my own part time business for three years now designing and printing T shirts and car graphics/decals. Myself and Mrs Glocko both have full time jobs and do the business in the evenings and at weekends.
On the one hand it's good not having to rely on the income from the business and we have been honing our skills and learning the market.
We know we could upscale the business to replace our salaries but that would be a big step to take.
I would suggest that you research, research and research again. If something doesn't exist online it's probably because it doesn't work or not needed!
One tip I have if you are looking at niche areas is to look at all the competition and take the good aspects of what they are doing through their websites, dumping stuff which they do bad. An example of this was one I saw in my field, price wise they were very competitive but Flash Gifs bouncing everywhere made the website awful to try and navigate.

Good luck in your efforts! :-)

Thank you. I so long to get off JSA and work for myself, so naturally any advice from anybody towards starting my own business would be greatly appreciated.

Have a word with these chaps!
http://www.wirralbiz.biz/site/

Yep, definitely recommend getting in touch with those people, and it's all about networking too.

Good call, i have a few contacts there including Sharon Stanton and Maud Duthie van der Venne, we've done alot with them in the past, great bunch

Good luck

Get yourself on Linked In

I've been running a business specialising in reducing running costs for businesses, in particular their telecoms costs.

Any business using BT to supply their telecoms, I can guarantee to save money for.

Again, done on the side but quite profitable, my cut comes from the supplier so it's win/win for me and the businesses I help.

I started my own business in May last year and haven't looked back once.

I found a specialised niche that surprisingly, I wasn't too bad at so stuck at it and now I'm busier than ever.

I was on J.S.A. at the time and took some help from Wirral Biz and also Reachout ( part of involve northwest ).

If you can give it a try without it costing you much outlay then what have you got to lose?

Better to have a go rather than sit here in 10 years time thinking - " I wonder what would have happened if I'd given it a go ............ ? "

Good luck with it anyway

glocko, do do you have any pics of the car stuff? you could always throw some business the way of the car club i'm in

I've asked Mark the Mod about advertising here and will be signing up to that. In the meantime here's a pic of my car! Keeping it on the thread topic, I taught myself the techniques of the vinyl application and believe I've got it to a tee now, one thing I would point out to the OP though is to look at all the other aspects of running a business, accounts, tax, selk discipline, premises etc etc etc. It's not just good ideas that make up a business. That's where Wirralbiz will help.

Hi Volly. Thanks for your reply. Great to hear you started your own business with success. Congratulations. I always love to hear of people making it on their own.

Will certainly check out Wirral Biz link. I am still considering some ideas for starting an online business, and once I think I have a profitable idea, with small competition and high demand (I believe a program called Micro Niche Finder is a good tool to use for this), I will get started.

Just had yet ANOTHER depressing job rejection - this time from Morrisons - so all the more reason to consider starting a business. Job rejection after job rejection is just demoralising me no end!