Why You Should Become A Niche Of One
“Escape competition through authenticity.”
No two humans are exactly alike. You can’t replace one person for another in any given situation and expect to get the same result. We are all vastly different.
And this simple recognition can be your competitive advantage. If you can learn to follow your unique interests, talents, and skills, you can escape competition and become your own niche. A niche of one. You can become the best at what you do. And that will get you paid.
The Paradox of Becoming A Niche Of One
A niche is just a “specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.” Here are some of the more popular broad niches online:
Pets
Technology
Self-Improvement
Health and Fitness
Investing & Money
Dating & Relationships
You don’t want to get into really broad niches. Instead, when you create a niche of one, you build something so specific to you that no one else can reproduce it in just the same way. It stands alone.
The paradox of becoming a niche of one is that once you start to scale this thing that is totally unique to you, you will attract thousands of others who are interested in the same thing you are.
That’s the power of the internet. Whether it’s a product, service, content site, blog, forum community - whatever - you can find thousands of engaged users by pursuing something unique to you and using digital leverage to scale it online.
Examples of A Niche Of One
Wealest In “Money & Finance”
Wealest is part of the investing / money / finance niche. But it also infuses my interests in philosophy, psychology, and self-improvement. That’s what makes it an exploration of the “mental models” of wealth creation.
It’s not really about investing or personal finance, or budgeting. It’s about the first principles of how people go about generating wealth. Because of this specificity, nowhere else on the internet is there a collection of ideas just like Wealest. It’s a niche of one.
And it turns out that thousands of people (per month) are interested in the same thing I am! That’s the paradox in action. Specificity builds an audience online.
Dan Go In “Health & Fitness”
Dan Go is in the popular “health and fitness” niche but brands himself as the “#1 Body Transformation Coach to Entrepreneurs.”
He doesn’t just train anyone. He trains high-performing entrepreneurs and CEOs looking to improve their fitness (if this is you, check him out!). He’s created a particular niche so that he can become the best within it.
That’s what building a niche of one is all about - being so specific that you become the best at what you do.
Michael McGill In “Tech”
Michael McGill is in the “tech” space but brands himself as “The Stoic CIO.” His combination of stoicism and IT expertise helps “IT professionals become IT leaders.”
He’s not just an IT expert helping other IT professions. He’s using stoicism to get even more specific in his niche. His following is growing nicely and will continue to grow as he builds a niche of one.
So, how can YOU become a niche of one?
Keep Tweaking What You Do Until You Stand Alone.
Naval Ravikant writes that if you want to get wealthy, you must “Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.”
That means being flexible - constantly revising in small ways - what it is you do. Keep tweaking until you stand alone.
Here’s Naval from his How To Get Rich: Every Episode podcast:
“If you really want to get paid in this world, you want to be number one at whatever you do… And you want to keep changing what you do until you’re number one… Keep changing your objective until it arrives at your specific knowledge, skill sets, position, capabilities, location and interests. Your objective and skills should converge to make you number one.”
It’s not easy being flexible. Often, you have a very specific path you’re following or want to follow. And that’s great - having a plan is important.
But don’t put blinders on. You need to be open to other opportunities as they arise. A busy, cluttered, stressed-out mind will miss life-changing moments along the way. It’s the small (or large) course corrections that will get you to your niche of one. Here’s Naval again:
“When you’re searching for what to do, you have two different foci to keep in mind. One is, ‘I want to be the best at what I do.’ The second is, ‘What I do is flexible, so that I’m the best at it’… You want to arrive at a comfortable place where you feel, ‘This is something I can be amazing at, while still being authentic to who I am.’ It’s going to be a long journey. But now you know how to think about it.”
If There’s No Market, You’ve Gone Too Specific.
If you’ve found a specific niche interest or service and are scaling it online, but no one is interested, you’ve gone too niche.
Specificity is good, but there must be a market for what it is you’re the best at.
If there isn’t, then make small adjustments to what it is you do until you find a market for it.
I was pretty confident there would be a market for “the mental models of wealth creators,” simply because the Wealth / Finance niche is massive. And I was right. But if a year into building Wealest, I had exactly zero traction - no readers, no visitors, no positive feedback, etc. - I would have changed my focus.
You can never ignore real-world feedback.
If there’s no market for what you’re offering, stop wasting your time and get tweaking until you find one.
It’s Okay Not To Know Right Now.
As Naval reminds us, this is a really long journey. It could take ten years of trial and error, false starts, and course corrections to find your niche of one. But stick with it.
Most people are still looking. I know I am. When people ask me what I do, I’m not sure what to say. I write, mostly. I also think and read. I invest. I brainstorm. I produce. I play. I do a bunch of random shit that goes absolutely nowhere.
Because I haven’t yet found my niche of one. I don’t know what I’m the best in the world at…yet.
The one thing I do know is that I don’t make widgets at the factory. And for that, I’m grateful.
Stick with it.
And keep going.