5 Steps To Help You Find Your Niche

Aspiring entrepreneurs always have to grapple with the question of – what niche? Indeed, finding a niche today, to kick-start your business is becoming ever more significant, thanks to the over-saturation of most notable industries. The question assumes even more weight when one considers the amount of time and money that’s poised to be at stake.

Many people would go through phases in life where a certain idea clicks in their mind and they’re like – Bingo! I’ve found the next big thing in the world. But that feeling soon starts to die down when they realize there really isn’t much money-making potential in it.

The realm of business is no place for starry-eyed, pipe dreamers. It’s a world where people make their own luck through their innovations and genius. So, before you think about getting your feet wet, it’s important to know what niche is best suited for your talent. You’ll learn how to find that through the course of this blog.

1. Identify What Ignites The Passion In You

To say business life can be tough would be an understatement. Running a business will eat out so much of your time that at some point you’ll feel you don’t have a personal life of your own. Most of the entrepreneurs aren’t prepared for the hypertense situations that are part and parcel of business world. That is why it’s really important to find out things you really care about and have passion for. What that does is gives you all the necessary motivation and drive to push ahead through the tough and challenging phases. It’s much easier to throw the towel when your business idea isn’t close to your heart. You can start by creating a list of the 10 things you’re most interested in.

Following are some of the points to keep in mind as you go about searching for your interests:

1. What activities do you look forward to jump into in your free time?
2. What ideas, philosophies and causes you subscribe to?
3. What topics get you excited? How would you like to make a difference in anything to do with them?

2. Identify What You Have To Offer

Once you have a long enough list of things you’re really passionate about, you can start the filtering process. Here, you weigh up the pros and cons of each option to identify which one is the best fit for business. Obviously, the profitability factor is quite significant in any business idea. If you’re just doing something out of your hobby, which is not monetizable, then you can’t really call it a business. So figure out what option gives you the best chance to break the bank. To really make a profitable business, you have to understand what will be its target audience, what’s their mentality and what are their major pain points. The more you look to understand your customers, the better you’ll be able to create a solution that makes them reach out to your business. To understand your target audience, you could head over to online forums such as Quora, Reddit etc and read about the questions people are asking using the keywords related to your business. You can also go for a personal conversation through idea-extraction sessions with your TA. Here’s you dig deep into understanding their day-to-day struggles and things that bug them the most.

3. Research What The Competitors Are Up To

Competition – the very word sends shivers down the spine of amateur entrepreneurs. But instead of letting stiff competition discourage you from pursuing your business idea, consider it an opportunity to hit it big. A calculated approach is what’s called for. Start off by creating a spreadsheet of all your competitors – both big and small. Then carefully identify their shortcomings – it could be a lack of customer service, prices on the higher end or even middling quality products/services. See if that’s an opportunity to take the edge in the competition. Even creating high-quality content, offering helpful information that your competitors are keeping from their target audience are various opportunities that can help you stand in the crowd.

4. Ascertain Your Niche’s Profitability

As mentioned earlier, figuring out the profitability of a business idea is quite crucial. So going back to the list of all those passionate interests, start cherry picking the ones that give you the best chance to monetize and monetize big.

You can do that by looking up the product/service reach of a given idea in its respective market. If the product has little or no demand, you’re going to have hard luck selling it. So better off making a pass on such idea.

Ideally, you want to invest in ideas that have been in vogue for quite some time. Their longevity is a clear sign of their usefulness and ultimately the ability to create demand.

Finally, it’s not important that you start your business right away once you’ve found that one brilliant business idea. You can look to partner with brands and companies already in the niche of your choice and start offering your services to them. That way you’ll earn a commission as well as buy that all important time to perfect your own unique solution.

5. Test Before Going Big

Once you’ve laid down the groundwork to set up your business, the only thing that’s left to settle the butterflies is to get a reality check. Testing your idea has never been easier than today with the help of internet. All you need to do is create a landing page and start uploading some helpful content on it along with the product/services you’re offering. Once done, you’ll want to run ads to drive traffic to it. As you start getting substantial traffic, you’ll get a sense of how things are performing. 

Even if the results aren’t as spectacular as you expected them to be, it’s alright. Go for A/B split testing to better your conversion rate. This will help you understand what might be stopping buyers from purchasing from you. Once you have all the answers, you’re ready to take your business live on a full-scale.

Final Thoughts

The planning process from making a list of the most interesting ideas to researching and testing etc can appear quite lengthy. Many times, that alone is enough for aspiring entrepreneurs to scrap any thoughts of starting a business. So, going from one stage to another in quick succession is very important. Indeed, the sooner you get your hands working in a real-time business scenario, the faster you’ll learn how to react to a host of different situation. Are you also planning to start your own business? Have you found the niche you want to be working in? How has your journey been so far? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below: