Business is tough and competitive. Even small niche products compete for a limited number of interested customers. If anything, carving out a successful product in a niche category can be even more difficult.
What if you had a 5 year backlog for your product? Sounds like nirvana right? Vanilla Cycles does. Sacha White of Vanilla Cycles makes handmade steel bicycles. No high tech carbon fiber on these machines. Each one built for one customer.
He has certainly built a reputation for beautiful handcrafted steel bikes. In the handcrafted realm, I think reputation is 90% of the current and future sale. Customers are willing to wait. This is a phenomenon not seen in many other aspects of business.
I don’t think our professional lives are much different. What are you doing to build a reputation that demands a 5 year wait for your services?

Vanilla Cycles

2 Comments
August 11, 2008 at 5:53 am
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