How do you find the perfect niche for your product?
Do you find a niche first or a problem first?
Getting to know your customers is the key to success. But it's not easy to get that. The question is, how do you discover the perfect niche for your product?
Here is my process:
Identify your product's unique features: Determine what sets your product apart from similar products in the market. What are the unique features or benefits that your product offers that others don't?
Define your target market: Identify the group of people who are most likely to buy your product. Consider factors such as age, gender, interests, income, and location.
Research the competition: Look at other products in your industry or category and determine which niches are already being targeted. Identify gaps or areas where there is still demand but not enough supply.
Conduct market research: Use surveys, focus groups, or other market research methods to understand the needs and preferences of your target market. Identify pain points or problems that your product can solve.
Evaluate profitability: Determine if your chosen niche is financially viable by looking at the size of the market, the competition, and the potential for growth.
So I would love to hear your thoughts on finding a niche. What strategies do you use to identify and reach out to potential customers?
There is no direct way. I answered this today in my Micro SaaS Ideas Pro member community. But just adding here if it makes more sense.
The question that was asked in our community is more about 'Finding Problem-Market, Solution-Market, Channel-Market, and Founder-Market fit at the same time'
Problem-Market fit and Solution-Market fit can be addressed much more easily and the risk can be mitigated around these two. For example, our Micro SaaS Ideas Pro reports carry a lot of research around these and help get started, stay ahead of the game.
Founder-Market fit can be also mitigated by picking 10-15 ideas from Problem-Market and Solution-Market finalized list. Then picking on what interests you/your profile more and that fits for your day-to-day work/schedule and fits for your strong skills that you can bring to table.
Channel-Market fit is the toughest of the lot. This is where most people have challenges. There are hundreds of channels people can pick and some people might be ahead in the game. For example, if LinkedIn channel is the best channel for a certain product and you don't have enough audience on LinkedIn, this could be red flag for you but for others who has LinkedIn following could be a green flag. The same is the case with other channels like Twitter, TikTok, Reddit including SEO. Some people might have multiple sites and building a new site and betting on SEO might be easier for them than it's for you. Some people rely on BetaList, ProductHunt by launching multiple times. Some people rely on growth hacking by creating viral content. Some people pick cold outreach. Some build side-projects and use these as growth hacking projects to drive traffic. Some people outsource. Some people bring on co-founders. Some do sales instead of marketing. Some advertise. Some people work for free to convert them to paying users. There are hundreds of combinations on how you can validate your product. So, most of your experimentation goes here and there is no right/wrong and needs a lot of patience and experimentation.
This is something I really struggle with, in particular identifying a good first pass ICP for a broad product. I'm finding what my gut tells me is one of our good personas (maybe a little less computer savvy or confident communicating visually) hard to target at least with keywords. So following here for strategies that might work for me.
Let your customers help you find it. This is a big mistake I made when I got into affiliate marketing and what the customers wanted to buy was always different than what I though they wanted to buy. Hope this helps!
I would generally start by building an audience list that you specifically enjoy serving.
Then I would talk about their challenges and problems.
Then - prioritize the niche based on the value you can deliver, size of market and the profit you can get from it.
Devil in details, but I like that approach, you can build your mission to serve some special niche and make it better
There are entire books and courses solely on this topic. But one insight I have is:
I think you need to find a niche first, especially one you care about. Because once the hard times come, and they will, working on a niche you care about will keep you going. Once you find a niche you care about, find out what problems they're having and if its worth your effort to solve those
"Do you find a niche first or a problem first?"
I think both approaches can work. Sometimes you get a cool idea for something and then start thinking: "Okay, who can find this useful?". Other times you notice a trend or a specific group of people who seem like potentially good customers, so you try to craft your solution with them in mind.
For me, I thought my product was already pretty niche. Turns out it was still a bit too generic. I started to pivot once I went to a conference and talked with a few people.
There are number of ways, I can share my experiences
At my current startup - Healthcompiler.com - The way we found our ICP is we worked with digital health solutions companies initially on health Integration as a service with my consulting company - https://www.taliun.com/healthcare-integrations
My previous employer - Both the founders came out of Microsoft so they built something they knew would work well and did a joint GTM with Microsoft
Sales tools companies - As a broad topic like for example email marketing tools, they have to constantly work with/talk to broad customer base and then draw insights. While talking to the customer use the moms test technique.
In the past i tried building AI in medical writing - we couldn't co create with a customer but we were able to find the ICP since I knew the market just enough
I prefer the approach to develop tools for a target audience, which I know already.
IMO: the best way to find a great idea is to look at a certain niche, see what the biggest pain points in their daily (professional) life is, and fix it.
If you deliver, you can not lose.
E.g. for era.sh - a markdown note-taking tool built for developer, we knew that there is a market, as we are from the same niche. We saw at work, that many people struggle with their tools and no-one is really satisfied with the existing solutions. We talked to developers around the world to validate the idea, and everyone was excited about the idea. So we started to create ERA to ease the pain of all those people.
For me, I find a person and talk to them. I spend a lot of time with them until I get that aha! moment. Worked for me so far
I totally agree! Building with customers is the key to success.
I've found a problem first, and the solution to the problem is niche. Still working on it, but it was more like a founder-market fit rather than a product-market fit for me.
Mine is founder-market fit too 😄
Btw, best wishes to you. 💯
I use a keyword research tool to do this, something like this:
I follow the audience first approach. So basically I start by finding an audience I want to serve and then I identify problems and solutions in that target audience. I have made a step-by-step guide to help others follow the process in case you are interested.