12th
Tacos
I’m interested in niche ideas. Every business book in the world talks about finding niche products as opposed to broader products. The theory is that you target less people, but your product is a better fit for those people it does target. No one wants a “shoe”, they want a “tennis shoe” or a “dress shoe” or a “work shoe”. Amateurs target too broadly in the hopes of capturing a larger market, but their product isn’t a good fit for anyone.
It seems like internet memes work in a similar way.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) took off out of nowhere. It targeted like a laser beam the people that “got it”, enough so that they felt compelled to show it to others who would also get it. This wasn’t planned, but it made FSM a success, got me a book deal, and has allowed me to avoid a “real job” for over two years.
It’s easy to go too broad. An “everything blog” will fail. A “diabetic cooking blog” would be successful, and it could easily be profitable. Niches are good.
But I have always wondered if it’s possible to go too small. Is there a niche so small that it will fail because it’s so small?
I will also mention at this point that I have an interest in photography and also tacos. So, put all of these ideas together. The interest in niche marketing, memes, photography and tacos.
I invented pretentious fine art taco photography.
It was as small a niche as I could come up with. I’m targeting the intersection of the fine-art crowd and the taco crowd. (In reality that’s not really true. I’m probably targeting the “that’s interesting because it’s weird” crowd.) But it’s an experiment all the same.
I took a bunch of artistic photos of a taco and made a website about it. I sell 8x10 prints on there and I’m organizing a traveling taco-art exhibit and everything. I went all out. I borrowed a $1200 lens for a $0.59 taco. The pictures turned out pretty good.
I launched the website a few days ago at henderob.com
The site has received thousands of visits, and has been linked by a few top-tier blogs. At this point it’s too early to call it a success, but it’s intriguing.
I’ve already received some compliments on my work:
You are the Orson Welles of the taco photography world and this is your Citizen Kane.
And some criticisms:
It would have been better if you had photographed hand-made taco shells - the mass-manufactured ones leave me cold.
No one has bought any prints yet, although several people have said they plan to. Maybe they’re overpriced; for $32, you could buy like 50 tacos. But maybe they’re underpriced; fine art should be expensive, that’s part of what makes it “fine”. I’ll leave the price where it’s at for a while.
I’m going to see how far I can take this. To what extent will the public accept my taco art? And what of the idea that “good art is controversial”?
We’ll see what happens.
Update 9/13/07: BoingBoing linked my taco photos tonight at 11pm. This is huge. BoingBoing has a huge audience (plentiful, not fat).
Update 9/14/07: New York Magazine found my project:
Update 1/26/08
It’s been several months now since the Experiment, and you’ll be pleased to know that there’s still a healthy interest in Fine Art Taco Photography. And while that taco is long gone, its memory will live on in the hundreds of prints that have been sold and which are now being displayed around the world.
The traveling taco-art exhibit is somewhat of a failure, but that’s not for lack of interest. Plenty of people have requested to display my Art. I even had an offer to do a gallery showing. But I guess I am just not that serious about my craft, because I find myself turning down most of these offers. I do send out prints to worthy venues from time to time, but I do little, if any, follow up, and it’s only when I get an email from a Fan of my Work that I remember that I have Art being displayed wherever. I’m a crappy artist.
Prints are still available. I’m back in the US now, so if you want them signed, I’m happy to do that. The first person who asks me will get a signed taco - marker on shell - mailed to them, on the condition that they send me a picture of the signed taco being displayed in a place of prominence.