

Expanding your service to multiple verticals - EGF
http://spencerfry.com/building-blocks

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drp
If you're adding more verticals to a parent product, make sure the verticals
you add are closely linked in the mind of consumers, and not just in the data
that defines them.

We've seen both sides of this at HotPads. The site started out with rental
housing only and added for-sale listings a bit later. Those two verticals are
closely linked and we made a 'buy vs. rent' search to tie them together. The
addition of the real estate vertical worked out very well.

Last year we added hotel and vacation rental listings. Aside from tighter
scheduling rules, the data behind these listings is very close to apartments,
but nobody thinks about finding a place to stay the same way they think about
finding a place to live, so getting users for those verticals has been much
more of a struggle.

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DenisM
similar to "buy vs. rent" you could probably have something like "hotel vs
lease"? It seems like the duration of stay is key. Another key might be
business users - if you travel for business and have to stay with client for
e.g. three weeks or a whole months maybe there is a gap in there.

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aditya
The bigger question is how you decide which vertical to go after, and if it is
a big enough opportunity.

Ideally, you want to address the biggest market possible, but you can't do
that and have passionate early adopters at the same time. No having your cake
and eating it too. Picking the right vertical and sticking to it in the
beginning requires a fair bit of effort.

