Those clever guys at Inc.com pushed out a great little thought provoking piece titled
The Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now.

So I thought it would be useful to list them and offer a few comments:

#1 Candy – industry grew 3.7% – think niche and value, be remarkable

#2 iPhone Apps – 30,000 apps to date – keep the day job, 95% of these apps will not make money for the developer

#3 Health-Care Technology – $19Bn pledged in the stimulus bill for health-information tracking systems – Great part of the software space, but be clear on your business result and the customer you are trying to impress

#4 Beer, wine wholesale – export of American whiskey grew 8% last year – stay close to the value argument, still very price sensitive

#5 Software as a Service – software as a sector expected to grow at around 5% but SaaS potentially at much higher levels – the on demand, subscription model is very compelling for buyers but vendors need to be crystal clear on their business model

#6 Home Health Care – demographics on your side -the key is choosing a niche you can dominate

#7 Yoga Products & Services – staggering to think Americans spent $5.7Bn on yoga stuff in 2008 – think about what has not been done in this industry

#8 Technical & Trade Schools – plenty of potential candidates – think about repeat business and revenue model carefully

#9 Fast- Casual Dining – Panera Bread grew 16% last year – see my twitter ref to food trucks

#10 Green Construction -green building space taking off – perhaps a good time to train your staff on the issues affecting this sector to get ahead of the curve

#11 Niche Consulting – saving money, pr damage control mentioned – it will take much longer than you think to build a brand – allow 9 months for your first client

#12 Education Technology – US still emerging market – great opportunities for hardware and software but again you will need to be remarkable and niche to stand out

#13 Temp Staffing Firms – in theory yes – but in practice, we need to be much closer to recovery to see this industry pick up – long term the trend of senior temp execs will be big in the US like Europe

#14 Government Services – Huge growth stats being thrown off this sector – invest in quality RFP and documentation preparers

#15 Accounting Services – cash flow management driving growth – great opportunity for regional practices to steal market share. The public are very cynical of the big brands

#16 Repair Services – if it’s worth repairing why buy a new one -quality of service will separate the winners from the losers

#17 Self Improvement – historically seen strong growth – pricing of these products and services will be key, need to show remarkable value

#18 Energy - fastest growing sector of the Inc 500 -watch the divergence between investor appetite and entrepreneurial passion, bootstrap for as long as you can

Good luck!

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