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Before you throw away an offbeat business idea, consider its prospects in a market niche that may be waiting to be tapped.

You think your business idea is too far out or too offbeat to be workable and profitable? If so, don’t get rid of it as yet and think it out again. With a little tweaking and the right entrepreneurial push, that idea of yours just might be the next big thing to take the market by storm.

Indeed, this has been the common experience for some of the entrepreneurs that we featured in Entrepreneur Philippines. Each of them saw an unlikely market niche just waiting to be tapped, and they relentlessly pursued their respective quirky ventures until they became thriving businesses. Just a few representative examples: a sociology professor learned to do magic tricks and made teaching them a sideline, a radio disc jockey made himself an impresario for old time foreign musical groups, a former airline in-flight magazine staffer developed novel tour packages aboard videoke jeepneys, and two medical students concocted anatomically correct cakes and pastries—and created a  niche market for them. In a word, each of these entrepreneurs made an improbable business idea possible and profitable.

After all, the bottom line is that no matter how traditional or eccentric a business might be, it is worth pursuing so long as it holds a strong promise of creating, satisfying, and retaining customers. For as Dr. Peter Drucker, the late management guru, had always emphasized to businesspeople and marketers, the customer “is a foundation of a business and [is what] keeps it in existence. The customer alone gives employment. And it is to supply the customer that society entrusts wealthproducing resources to the business enterprise.”