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independence2 unconnected · 3 more authors in those circles
applies to

b2b and consumer, no audience needed

confidence

high

evidence

13 claims · 10 articles · 4 receipts

window

2009-01-11 → 2023-12-24

2 builders who never spoke to each other

Narrow the niche one level further

Take the audience you had in mind and cut it down again, naming an occupation or a situation rather than a general category. A tightly drawn target makes you the obvious choice for the people who fit, and the ones who nearly fit still buy, so specificity costs less volume than founders fear.

The method

  1. 01

    Narrow whatever you were about to make by one level: a pasta cookbook instead of a cookbook, a sleep remedy instead of a health remedy, a digital nomad blog instead of a travel blog.

  2. 02

    Pick a narrow niche rather than a broad market, because reaching the audience, the press and the influencers all gets easier at once.

  3. 03

    Sanity-check a niche before committing by looking up the subscriber count of its subreddit.

  4. 04

    Pick a narrow subject and then narrow it again by naming who it is for.

  5. 05

    Choose a slice of the field the existing books ignore, and prefer one that also pulls in people outside the obvious profession.

What it returned

  • 2018

    In March 2018 a pre-launch page for a Kanye-fan dating site drew coverage from Fox, ABC, MTV, Complex and Highsnobiety

  • r/pasta at 12k, r/sleep at 30k and r/digitalnomad at 446k are given as reference sizes

  • Not design but iOS app design for developers; not fitness but high intensity interval training for moms; not productivity but bullet journaling for authors

  • Interface design was a niche next to the crowded web design shelf, and it appealed to programmers and founders shipping their own apps, not just designers

Sources

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

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More in positioning

all positioning plays

the second source

Three plays a week, for the phase you are in

No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.