Here I am, overloading my brain with information from Inc.com, but suddenly I read the Entrepreneurial Breaking News at Inc.com (and I felt the urge and now you can read my urge). One of the news is about Data Sharing and state that Nuospace cures the pain of

..many small businesses are still using e-mail to collaborate, store and share information, leading to clogged inboxes and lost data…

Nuospace is a Web-based business wiki that helps co-workers share data in a secure environment. On top of documents, the application also supports blogs and e-newsletters.

First thing that came to mi mind is Google Sites and what is the point of just having something that Google has and competing with them. After  putting more thought on it you can’t blame them since, (maybe) they started before Google bought JotSpot (now Google Sites). So what do you do? How do you deal with juggernaut and a market you will find many other wiki offers? Like Geoffrey A. Moore suggests in “Crossing the Chasm“, look for you niche market, which should be a “low hanging fruit” (easy to grab), dominate it and use it as a beachhead for your next niche market.

Moore states that competition is not bad, but it’s actually good. Competition educates the market, there is more buzz and there is chance for the market to grow. Also with competition make others understand your product and how it is different. So based on the above Moore, if Nouspace is to succeed, they should target small business, but a kind of market that is small enough for them to control, but big enough for them to grow. That market is their low hanging fruit niche market.

Google is all about the mass market, the mainstream and has tons of money to burn in trying to buy or destroy the competition, Nouspace (or any other startup)  lacks resources. So, Nouspace can compete with them in providing personalized solutions for small business that are near the business, in contrast Google cares about enterprises, so like a office of 10 people will not make Google excited.

Take for [a more concrete] example wikidot. In plain site is “Yet another wiki hosting site”, but if you visit the site and/or use it, you will se something different. They provide a community (such that of blogs), you get a sense of having more freedom, its more open and unlimited (only storage it not). You are not told what can you use it for instead, you get a nice welcoming message telling you some interested facts about wikidot users. Wikidot is a place for people that understand wiki and they found their niche market, where able to different themselves and attend the unattended: localized market (polish) and those seeking freedom.

If its a fight.. what about adsense ?(original image source)

What is so great about wikidot is their relax approach of telling you all their features and limitations. For example they state that you can make money providing you with AdSense FAQ, documentation and panel. They state that storage limit is 300MB, but more is coming without paying more.

Wikidot has investors baking them up, they have a revenue model, but for some reason or another, I get a sense that the wikidot team loves what they are doing and that is enough of a point to give any Goliath a fight.