I ask because I'm currently working in the industry I've chosen as my niche. Hospitality. In fact, I'm a Sales Assistant.

I have been working in this industry for ten years. I have created everything from restaurant and lounge/bar menu's for different hotels, and even welcome notices from housekeeping, etc. Previous employers have always found it incredibly useful that I'm so good with things like desktop publishing.

There are a few things that I don't want to do, like answering phones (which I hate and just managed to get out of after three years less than a week ago).

I'm worried that my current job would have a problem with me working for other hotels (or even bed and breakfasts), even if its just creating menus and things.

I can just see VA services being of great use to local bed and breakfasts and individually owned small hotels, as well as bars, lounges, pubs, and restaurants in the area.

What do you think?

I think that could be a great niche & the beauty of having your own business is that you don't have to do anything you don't want to do.

You wouldn't even have to keep it local. That's something you could do for people around the world.

Regarding your current employer, the question I would have is whether you've ever signed anything like a non-compete agreement. If so, then you may be stuck or you may have to get some legal help in how you can get around it. If I were in that position I would be looking to see if there were other things I could do to get started, that may not fall under that agreement, and wait until the agreement terminates to add what you really want to be doing.

If you don't have the non-compete agreement issue to worry about, then it comes down to what the risk to your current job would be by doing your own thing. Hopefully you have a manager who would support your entrepreneurial spirit, but if not you may have to be stealthy about it and then assess what would happen if they found out. I'm not promoting dishonesty, but I am promoting the fact that what you do on your own time is not their concern.

The one thing I would suggest regarding this niche is to definitely study your competition, which I would think is going to be all the other types of industries which provide these services for your niche. For instance, I have a client who is a restaurant owner and her graphics person actually did her entire menus, and then the graphics person had enough business to give to a printer that she gets a good discount for having the menus printed. So you are going to want to make sure that you can offer the entire thing to people with more benefits, or added value, than the other type of resources they could be using now.

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Pam Blackman - The Process Coach
Get more done in less time by streamlining!

Thank you. I didn't sign a non compete, just standard employment forms like taxes.

I'm actually pretty familiar with the need in my area. For example, my previous job spent thousands to have brochures created and I could have done the same thing for much cheaper. local bed and breakfasts would love the help i imagine. plus i'm in a destination market which is helpful for this sort of thing, and i have ten years industry experience.

always intetested to know what people think of this idea though.

Sorry my phone wont let me edit posts. actually i would love more thoughts on the idea. its a huge investment to do something like this and id be lying if i said it didnt scare me.

I think it is legitimate for you to build your own business on your experiences. If you want to be absolutely sure, I would say consult a lawyer. It's better to spend $150-200 up front to be sure you are operating legally. When I was choosing my business structure I consulted a lawyer that I found on a recommendation from a local small business non profit.