Communications satellites would be a great market, but the capacity for putting a two-ton satellite into geosynchronous orbit requires one BIG rocket, and not something that the private sector could easily start out with. It's like having the first ship your company builds be an aircraft carrier.

For a while, there were a number of companies like Iridium that proposed small, low-earth-orbit communications satellites, and private launch companies started ramping up to meet it. Rotary Rocket, one I was involved with, was one of these. When the small satellite market crashed, the Roton launch system principle did not survive the scale-up necessary to handle larger payloads, and the company went under.

Right now, it seems like tourism has a good chance of being the "back door" market that brings the private sector into a mature position in the launch industry, and companies like SpaceX are still pursuing the small satellite market, funded by the deep pockets of its founder. I doubt investment could be found, even now, from conventional sources.