A niche opportunity is one that presents itself due to a trend or is a niche opportunity as a result of a particular turn of events. I’m not condoning that you prey on people who have suffered disaster by swooping in and selling water bottles for $20 each. I’ll leave that to theme park beverage vendors and airport convenience store owners.

What I am saying is recognize trends and events and realize the opportunities they might provide, however temporary.

Let’s take mineral makeup as an example. Mineral makeup is not liquid but a powdery makeup made of micro minerals that I’m hoping will make me look decades younger.

Because of relentless terrorists who clearly want to annoy us by doing terrorist things that later require us to strip naked prior to boarding a plane, bottles of liquid in carry on baggage was suddenly and severely limited.

All of a sudden, a carry on with any liquid over 3 oz was the same as being armed and dangerous. Three year olds were stripped of deadly juice boxes, mothers had their hair gel confiscated.

This would have been a great opportunity for the mineral makeup people to LEAP forward to promote the fact their product could be stowed in a carry on bag since it was a powder and not a liquid. Thousands of female business travelers on short commuter flights were scrambling to find solutions (not literal solutions) to the dilemma of traveling with a carry on and having to put everything liquid in a 3 oz jar which wasn’t that easy to find. Think of all the females that marched in out-of-town board rooms with splotchy complexions. It just makes me shudder to think about it. The mineral makeup people had the product, they just missed the niche opportunity. The target in this case was female business travelers on short commuter flights who preferred carry-on baggage. I think that qualifies as a niche market.