Thriving In The Tide Pools

Once you look beyond the hype, you can earn great riches in small niches.

For a few years in the mid to late 00s, my ‘hosted community’ niche was the darling of the technology world.

An entire ecosystem sprung up to help companies build their own communities on platforms they control. Where attention flowed, money followed.

This was still in the exciting ‘markets are conversations’ era. Organisations which previously tried to exercise tight control of their message were now engaging openly with the public. And their customers were only too happy to openly engage with one another - often in the very communities these companies had set up.

Then social media came along.

Suddenly there was something newer, sexier, and cheaper for these organisations to use. Social media platforms offered free organic reach (remember that?). The usage of these platforms skyrocketed. It was clear social media was where people were spending their time and everyone flocked to it.

A growing number of organisations shifted from hosting their community themselves to using social media tools instead. The trend lines couldn’t have been more clear. Social media was going to be far, far, bigger than online communities had ever been.

This presented an obvious dilemma. Should I follow the trend and shift to becoming a social media consultant? Or should I stay in my familiar niche and hope it was big enough to grow a consulting practice?

Many competitors at the time had shifted their practice to advising clients on effectively using social media tools.

I made a conscious decision to not be a social media consultant. I turned down projects that were centred around social media and focused entirely on a more narrow niche.

What Happened After I Was Left Behind?

Exactly what we expected would happen did happen.

The popularity of social media increased at the expense of online communities. Budgets, people, and attention shifted to social media.

The wave of popularity upon which had given birth to my niche had crashed and I was left behind in a small tide pool.

The thing about tide pools, however, is they can support plenty of life.

I quickly discovered I was pretty much alone in that tide pool.

Everyone else had moved on but I remained one of the very few consultants who had stayed behind to help companies build and develop their communities. If companies wanted external help, there were very few people with the expertise they could turn to.

While the tide pool didn’t seem to be growing, it wasn’t dying either. Instead, a process of natural selection took place where communities focused on building connections and friendships amongst members moved to social platforms best suited for that. While communities based around asking and answering questions remained on hosted platforms (typically customer support-based communities).

As a result of this one decision, FeverBee has earned millions of dollars in consultancy revenue. Better yet, when the tide turned once more shifted to hosted communities, we were in the prime position to expand and benefit.

Avoid The Next Big Thing

In theory, it makes sense to stay ahead of trends and become the consultant everyone is going to need in the future. For example, if you know the metaverse is the future of your industry, you can try and gain expertise in it and then sell that expertise to eager clients.

There are so many problems with this logic it’s difficult to know where to begin.

First, when the boundary to being considered an expert is reset from several years to several months (with no case studies needed!), anyone can call themselves an expert. You’re going to be in competition with people just like you. Each person will compete for attention by making increasingly bombastic claims. Eventually, the hype bubble will burst.

Second, the future is very hard to predict. If you could predict the future, you would make more money in the stock market than in consulting. When a new technology is unleashed it’s very difficult to predict a) whether it will catch on and b) whether there is enough complexity to build a consultancy practice if it does catch on.

Here’s the Gartner Hype Cycle from 2010.

Looking at this with all the benefits you have in hindsight, how would you build a consultancy practice with any of these tools? There are plenty of opportunities there (cloud computing, predictive analytics etc…), but also plenty of dead-ends (E-Book Readers, Video Telepresence).

Third, organisations are incredibly risk-averse to new technologies. Hosted communities have been around for almost twenty years and we still encounter plenty of organisations who consider the idea too risky to implement in their organisation. Organizations aren’t going to leap aboard the new thing. Often they’re struggling to maintain and improve the current thing.

Organizations aren’t going to leap aboard the next new thing. Often they’re struggling to maintain and improve the current thing. 

Can you begin to imagine the shift in attention, budget, and strategic priorities an organisation would have to go through to adopt many of the new technologies emerging today? It’s possible, sure, but rare.

You Can Make Millions In Tide Pools

I know someone who makes close to $1m per year helping organizations support and maintain legacy operating systems. Most of his clients are public sector or government organisations that aren’t able to move to an upgraded system.

He is one of the few games in town and knows all the players to work with. 

He’s not about to compete with any new competitors in this area. When any of his clients wants to move, he can guide them through the entire process to upgrade to a new system. He helps create the RFP, provides advice on vendors, manages the process etc… No one else has the expertise to do that except him and his past clients.

The vast majority of consultants succeed in helping clients improve important things in boring sectors. Consultants thrive in places where:

1. Clients spend a lot of money. The more money a client spends on something, the more likely they want to ensure it works. That creates a natural need for consultants who can improve what they’re doing.

2. They struggle with complex problems. The more complex the activity, the more a client is likely to need external help. Part of the reason so many social media consultants struggled was the technologies themselves really aren’t that complicated to explain.

There are two lessons here. First, you don’t need to leap into a new wave about to crash upon your industry. The speed at which it transforms an industry will always be slower than expected and its transformational effects won’t be known for years. You will have plenty of time to adapt if you need to.

Second, all you will find at the crest of a hype wave is chaos. The overwhelming majority of consultants will thrive in the tide pools left behind. Being one of a few people in a tide pool the majority of people have forgotten is one of the best places you can be.

This is where consultants thrive - not chasing after the next thing but helping their clients improve the current thing.