Back in August, I posed the question as to whether a freelance writer should write for a niche or for the masses. In the end, I concluded that I could ultimately do both, focusing my energies on a particular niche or two, while still dabbling in other topics to help broaden my horizons. This strategy may or may not be effective, depending on the nature of your business. That said, at least one company has taken their niche and transformed it into something that is appealing to the masses.

Lululemon Athletica was founded in 1998 by Chip Wilson. It was a company that was clearly targeting the yoga crowd, offering clothing and other products for that particular lifestyle. The majority of their customer base was and continues to be female, but they also sell clothing for men and children as well. Yoga used to be an activity that was on the fringe and only a small group of people would actually participate. That has changed, especially in Vancouver where Lululemon is based.

It could be because of companies like Lululemon that yoga, pilates and other similar exercises have become so popular. Alternatively, it could be because yoga is getting popular that Lululemon has continued to grow. Whatever the case, Chip Wilson has rode the wave and made a bundle of money along the way. What started as a niche market has quickly become the mass market. I know far too many people who wear Lululemon clothing but have never even attempted a single yoga pose. They wear it because it’s comfortable and because it’s fashionable.

If you want to talk about success, you should check out what has been happening with the Lululemon Athletica stock. The company put forth an initial public offering at US$18 a share before making its TSX debut in late July for $28.99. Since then, the stock price has continued to rise, most recently getting an $8.14 jump yesterday based on new profit projections for the third quarter. Shares in Lululemon Athletica (TSX:LLL) hit an all-time high of $49.75 before dropping down to $48.14 to close the day.

This goes to show you that even if your initial business idea approaches a very specific niche, given the right circumstances and proper marketing, you can expand that niche (without departing from your core sales pitch) so that it appeals to everyone.

Some of you may have watched Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby last summer. As you recall, one of the catchphrases from the movie, starring Will Ferrell, was “If you’re not first, you’re last.” Part of the movie was written to disprove this notion and we can see many examples of this on the Internet. It goes to show you that even if you’re not the first person to come up with a certain idea, it does not mean that you can’t make plenty of money from that idea. Do it better than the predecessor and people will notice.

Perhaps the best example of this is Google. Nearly everyone I know relies on Google for their web searches these days. Very rarely do I run into people who prefer to use other services like Yahoo!, MSN, or Ask.com. Google certainly was not the first search engine to hit the scene. I’m sure many of you remember names like Hotbot, Altavista, and Excite. By and large, the mass exodus from these services is because Google has a cleaner interface and it provides more relevant results. People like that.

The same thing can be said about social networking sites like Facebook. Again, Facebook is obviously not the first website of its kind. Many of you may be on MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, AsianAvenue, and all sorts of other services. With talk of a possible Facebook MP3 store, it’s clear that Facebook is rising in popularity and plenty of people are trying to make money from it. I need not remind you of the innumerable Facebook applications.

If you’ve got an idea or a concept that you feel can make money online, don’t let the “copycat phenomenon” deter you from giving it a shot. John Cow copied John Chow and look how far he has gone.

For young entrepreneurs, it can be very difficult to secure a business loan. This is because banks are obviously hesitant to cut a cheque to someone with virtually no work experience and no guarantee that they’d be able to pay it back. Most young people don’t have very much in terms of assets and many carry a rather hefty debt from their student loans. Of course banks don’t want to lend them any more money.

Although there are many opportunities to make money online with next to no start-up capital — yes, success can cost almost nothing — most new business owners still need some money before they can really get started, whether it be the cost of designing a website or bringing a concept product into reality. So, where can these young people turn?

Thankfully, the people at CanadaOne have compiled an extensive list of organizations that are willing to provide grants and loans to young entrepreneurs in Canada. For example, there is the Western Youth Entrepreneur Program, which provides “up to $25,000 for entrepreneurs between 18 and 25 years of age in rural areas of western Canada.” If you need even more startup capital, you can consider something like BDC’s Young Entrepreneur Financing Program, which offers “customized term financing up to $100,000 for new businesses demonstrating long-term viability.”

The full list can be found on the CanadaOne website. Similar services and opportunities surely exist in the United States and Europe as well.

But it is worth everything. It used to be that if you wanted to start a successful business, you would need to raise a substantial amount of capital. Say you wanted to open a restaurant, for example. You’d have to buy a location, outfit it with furniture and equipment, and then hire a bunch of staff. It was all very expensive and not within the realm of the average person.

With the Internet, things have changed dramatically. When you look at some of the most successful blogs on the Internet, the only costs involved are domain registration and hosting. Depending on what package they get, this can run up a total annual expense of less than $100. With this very minor monetary investment, huge amounts of money can be made. John Chow, for example, made over $17,000 last month from his blog alone. And that doesn’t even include the cash he gets from TTZ Media and TheTechZone.

Even dot com moguls can be outdone, though, and by high school dropouts to boot. You may have heard the story of 17-year-old Ashley Qualls. She started Whateverlife three years ago, providing the people of the world with free MySpace layouts. These were particularly catered to teenagers. Like so many other websites before it, Whateverlife cost next to nothing to launch (and maintain), but Ashley pulls in up to $70,000 a month from that site. And this is at age 17. She has since dropped out of school.

It goes to show you that anyone can succeed online, regardless of how much funding they have backing them up. All you need is a great idea, perfect execution … and a little luck certainly doesn’t hurt either.

I wrote about this same topic some time back on Beyond the Rhetoric, but I feel it is worth revisiting for several reasons. Many of us, whether we work for ourselves or for a company, spend a good deal of time in front of our computers. It could be graphic design, web design, freelance writing, financial management… the list goes on. The personal computer has very much become a part of just about every industry and with the proliferation of the Internet and instant communication, email has also become an integral part of doing business.

At first, people said that email would help increase productivity, because business partners from around the globe could communicate with one another instantly, sending updated files and all sorts of other goodies in a simple name@domain.com kind of way. It seemed great at the time and I can’t imagine having the Internet without having access to email.

In a recent survey, more than one third of workers said that they were “stressed out” by email, because they feel that they need to respond to all messages as promptly as humanly possible. People have come to expect that when they send out an email, they’ll get a response within the next couple of hours. Contrast this to when people still used snail mail. Or even when someone was to leave a voicemail, it was perfectly acceptable to not reply until the next morning. With the instant gratification of the Internet, there is more pressure to reply instantly.

Furthermore, this same study found that these “stressed out” individuals checked their inbox “as often as 40 times an hour.” That’s more often than once every two minutes. I know that speaking for myself, I leave my Gmail window open all day, so I know right away if a message has come down the chute. Most of these aren’t urgent, but I feel compelled to know. In this way, I’m spending time reading and replying to email, rather than doing work that I actually get paid for.

Do you suffer from the same conundrum? Do you feel like your BlackBerry is just a company leash?

This is something that I’ve been looking into, but I can neither confirm nor deny its legitimacy. It turns out that there is a way for any Canadian to declare themselves as tax exempt and this status extends to GST, PST, and even income tax. My freelance writing business carries a GST number, so I charge Canadian customers accordingly, but one of my clients has told me that he is GST exempt because of Decision T2020-88.

Investigating further, I found this website, which is less than professional-looking and it’s definitely sporting a rather dated appearance. It cites the same decision, saying:

“Decision T2020-88 of the Federal Court of Canada recognizes, and the Nuremberg Principles demand that I act on my right and duty to refuse to support a society that participates in plans and preparations that are predicated on a will and capacity to commit mass murder.”

Apparently, Canada is involved in the production of nuclear weapons in some way, providing uranium to countries that actually build the weapons. I don’t have the details, but if you “refuse to support a society that participates” in such activities, then you can apply for a tax exemption. From what I can gather, the government obviously doesn’t want you to not pay your taxes (in other words, they want you to pay your taxes), so the person who put the website which I cited above… well, he’s been met with some opposition. His progress can be followed here.

So, what do you think? Is Decision T2020-88 legitimate and for real, or is this just one big crock? Let us know if you find anything that points in either direction through the comment form below.