How many niche frameworks are out there?
As far as I can tell, there's no shortage of frameworks for figuring out your niche. Just to name a few:
- Ikigai overlap
- You are the niche
- You are NOT the niche
- The 1000 True Fans Model
- The 3 Eternal Markets (Health, Wealth, Relationships)
The list goes on.
Overwhelming, right?
Well, no more.
After reading hundreds of tweets, newsletters, and Substacks about niches (and spending far too many hours brainstorming with generative AI), I've finally figured out how to stop fretting over finding my niche.
Ready? Let's dive in.
You are alive today because of stories
Imagine you're in hunter-gatherer times.
You're sitting at your tribe's bonfire when a group of men get back from a long hunt. They race into the village, eyes wide, covered in sweat—still trying to catch their breath.
"What happened?" you ask the hunters, dying to know why they came back with nothing but their spears and terror on their faces.
The leader of the group sits down at the fire and begins telling the tale of how the whole hunting party narrowly escaped becoming dinner for a pride of lions.
With each detail he mentions, your eyes grow wider. When he recalls how the grass behind them split open and a lioness was already mid-leap before anyone heard a sound, your jaw has hit the ground. By the time he gets to the part where the youngest hunter tripped, and the others had to double back into the middle of the pride to drag him out, you're practically falling off your seat.
Meanwhile, while the lead hunter is recounting his near-death experience, your friend, Dennis, is mindlessly poking a stick into the dirt. Every word of the hunting story is going in one ear and out the other.
The next day, you and Dennis go out on a hunt. Only one person returns.
Who do you think survived? The person who listened to the story? Or the person who didn't pay attention?
You are hardwired to listen to stories. It's in your blood.
The 5-Minute Test
Escape competition through authenticity.
—Naval Ravikant
Why do people want to figure out their niche?
Because they want attention from others. And how do you get people to pay attention to you?
By telling stories.
As per the group-of-hunters-almost-getting-eaten-by-lions story, we're genetically predisposed to tune out and listen intently when someone starts telling a story.
To get a little bit meta, why do you think you paid such close attention to the previous "You are alive today because of stories" section?
Because it was told as a story!
Imagine how boring it would have been if I just said something like:
"You are hardwired to listen to stories. Your hunter-gatherer descendants that survived listened to the stories told around the campfire. The ones who didn't got eaten by lions."
...
Crickets, right?
Ideas don't get attention. Stories get attention.
Instead of worrying about what your "perfect" niche is, all you need to do is figure out what your story is.
Now I promised that I'd help you figure out your niche in five minutes. That wasn't clickbait in the title.
But I will admit, by the end of this exercise, you won't have a concrete "niche" per se. Instead, you'll have a list of foundational stories that tells other people: "This is who I am."
And I'd argue that's a lot more valuable than "a niche." (Whatever that means.)
So here goes.
Get out a pen. And a piece of paper. Or a notebook. Or your phone, laptop, tablet—whatever. Just something that enables you to write or type.
Now think about the biggest event that happened in your life within the last three years. Something that radically transformed who you are as a person.
To make this thought exercise more tangible, consider the single biggest shift you had in the past three years in terms of:
- values
- habits
- morals
- identity
- worldview
- experience
- social group
Got it? Now think of the event that caused that massive shift. Write it down.
It doesn't have to be verbose. For me, I just wrote down:
"Watching Simon Squibb's YouTube video titled '30 Years of Business Knowledge in 2hrs 26mins' on July 19th, 2024"
And no, you don't need the exact date. I just happen to have one because YouTube conveniently logs when you watched a video in your watch history.
Once you have that first event, go back roughly another three years.
What big thing happened around then that changed your life? Write that one down, too.
And repeat this process over and over, until your memory gets too fuzzy. Or life events become insignificant. I'm guessing when you were five years old, you weren't having intellectual breakthroughs. At least, I know I wasn't.
Now look at what you've written down. Know what you have now?
A list of stories that no one else has. A list of stories that are integral to your niche of one—and that's the best part.
There is zero competition when you "decide on a niche" this way.
Through combinatorics, your sequence of stories is 100% unique.
You won't ever have to worry about getting beaten by Joe Schmo over there who has the same "former video game addict turned Andrew Tate wannabe copywriter" niche that you do.
No, your niche can't be reduced down to a series of words, an industry, or a set of interests.
Your niche is a journey. A journey that can only be told through your specific set of stories.
So sit down in front of the campfire, and tell your story.
Your tribe will come. And they will pay very, very close attention.