I just paid $150 for 24 hours worth of wifi access.
Why? Because when you’re floating in the Antarctic Peninsula, my only option is the sub-par, but essential, internet packages at outrageous prices.
My immediate response? bruh.
On the other hand, what a great reminder to build where people aren’t.
To offer ordinary things, where people will happily accept the worst version of those things, is absolutely one way to win.
We can complain about $150 remote wifi access, $7 airport water bottles, $15 movie theater popcorn, and $13 stadium beers, or we can see it for what it is – low supply in a high demand environment.
When applied to the world of website directories, these opportunities are still out there.
Meaning, if you stumble upon the right niche, you can still build a basic (almost sub-par) directory website that offers the bare minimum in terms of location-specific information and still earn hundreds of dollars a month through organic traffic.
But how rare are these opportunities? Quite rare.
Are these ideas easy to find? Of course not, but they’re definitely there.
How do you find these ideas? The same method I’ve covered countlessly using ahrefs and discovering creative ways to use the keyword explorer.
The beauty behind online business is that there’s a thousands ways to victory, and you can choose the path that suits your strengths.
Specialized Knowledge vs. Wholesale Approach
The most embarrassing business I avoid telling people about is my flipping and re-selling business.
It was a tiny business, but I’m proud of how I was able to pay for my apartment rent at the time by flipping items on eBay for 10 hours a week.
The embarrassment came from my own ego.
It came from the fact that I was going to garage sales at 6AM every Saturday and Sunday digging through people’s unwanted junk after voluntarily shutting down a $20k/mo footwear business I ran for five years.
I digress.
In the world of flipping, the two highest earning resellers are typically either:
- Specialized flippers: people who flipped a specific type of niche item (i.e. electronics, sneakers, specific type of collectibles, etc)
- Wholesale Vendors: vendors at flea markets who bought bulk items through storage units, estate sales and liquidation stores.
I belonged in the first category, where my specialty was electronics and collectibles.
I could walk into a flea market or garage sale, and within minutes identify if any items were worth more than $50, pull hundreds of market comps and random model numbers by memory, calculate my net margin after COGs, shipping and eBay fees, and negotiate the best price with the vendor to ensure at least 70% net margins were possible.
My greatest skill was finding flippable items quickly.
But my weakness was that I was slow to organize my inventory and list them on eBay.
In directory-land, the general concepts are similar.
Winning Path #1: The Idea Hunter
You can win by becoming a master at finding underserved niches, and be average at executing and implementing your directory site.
This requires you to spend most of your time researching, comparing niches, identifying competition, and creatively coming up with ideas to search in areas no one else is looking in.
Based on my observations, creatives and non-technical people typically choose this route.
Winning Path #2: The Speedy Implementor
Alternatively, you can become a master at implementing directory sites quickly in multiple niches, but spend less time validating each niche.
This requires you to have a strong ability to confidently glide through each step of the directory-building process to get a directory website up and running quickly and at scale.
Based on my observations, more engineers and technical people choose this strategy. Though AI and directory-specific tools are making this easier every day.
Both paths can lead to successful, cash flowing directory websites.
Both paths play to the different strengths of different types of builders.
In between these two methods exist hundreds of nuances specific to your particular workflow as a builder, which results in thousands of variations and viable pathways to cross the finish line and end up with a “successful” project.
It’s impossible to define these nuances for you, as they can only be discovered once you begin to invent a work flow that works for you.
Just reminding you, in case you’re feeling stuck, there are infinite ways to win.
As an added bonus, please enjoy this isolated image of this penguin eating ice.
If you’d like to meet, chat and build alongside smart directory builders, feel free to join my free directory community below.
Best,
Frey
