Find that niche

A third approach is to look for areas of the market that are not being addressed by the major publishers. For example, can you develop online materials to train the users of company-specific systems? If the user population is large enough, the development costs can be easily justified.

Another possibility is to look for vertical market niches. Who’s providing online training in systems for accountants, dentists or librarians? If the market is relatively small, it may be that customers will pay a hefty premium for training materials, as long as the overall cost-benefits are greater than for a more traditional classroom approach.

Finally, there are, of course, geographical niches. Some IT systems are specific to a particular country or language. Again, there may well be a sufficiently large audience to justify the development of online materials.