Entrepreneurial creativity never ceases to amaze me.
I was going through some Twitter feeds today, and found a link to this excellent report on NPR about a company called Bamboo Bike Studio, based in Brooklyn, NY. Three entrepreneurs, Justin Aguinaldo, Sean Murray and Marty Odlin are the force behind this remarkable outfit that is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of niche marketing you can possibly find.
Bamboo Bike Studio has reinvented a product that has been around hundreds of years and has done it in so many different ways:
- They use a different material (bamboo) to build their bike frames, instead of the usual steel.
- They have chosen a material that ties in perfectly with the current trend toward sustainability and environmental protection (bamboo is a renewable resource).
- They are taking their social responsibility one large step further by planning to build bamboo bike factories in different African and Latin American countries.
- They don’t just sell a product: they sell an experience. Here’s where it gets interesting: you don’t buy a bike, you buy a “bike class”, a weekend-long workshop where the prospective bike owner builds his/her own bike.
By finding this creative niche, BBS has created a true Purple Cow, a product that is at the same time its own marketing: the bikes look so unique that they instantly become a conversation piece. And, if that weren’t enough, just picture the bike owners telling their friends the story of how they made those amazing bikes themselves!
As they say (and this example proves it) there are no mature markets or products, only mature minds…
Head on to BambooBikeStudio.com to learn more about this great company, of follow them on Twitter.
