How to Dominate Without a Niche

I have heard way too many times that in order to find success you must have a tightly targeted niche. This is complete and utter bullshit and everyone seems to just gobble it up like it is the most delicious shit in the world. While this eating of shit may work for some people, it is not a make or break situation. Sometimes a niche may help you, but other times it can do more harm than good.

There are people who will tell you that you must have a niche inside of a niche to gain the most success. They preach that the more tightly targeted, the better. While this may work in some cases, it does not work in all cases. Sometimes this may put a ceiling on your customers and alienate everyone else. You are in essence creating a tiny bubble when you do this.

Using the common knowledge that a niche inside a niche is best, could yield some good results. Sports cars inside of cars could be good. Focusing on a certain make or model, even better. If your niche is dogs though, three legged dogs may not be a good choice unless there is no competition. The market is just not there.

Your niche is only as valuable as your market. Your market may have great value but too much competition. Your market could also have little value and little competition. Neither one of these is neccisarily bad. This makes for an average niche. If the two contrast, rather than line up, you have discovered either a goldmine or a money pit. You have to look at both aspects to determine a good niche.

I will pause here to allow you to think about that last paragraph, and how it applies to your niche.

Just keep thinking.

Here... Have another pic.

those were just some random pics I took in my yard.

Anyways,

I once designed a website based around a product that I had designed. (It was a dreadlock shampoo). Not only did I have that product, I also had free tutorials and other natural products on the site as well. I thought I had it all figured out. This was my ticket to millions.

There was only one competitor within this market so I thought I could dominate, because I had a revolutionary idea and I was getting a lot of attention on YouTube for an entirely different reason. I felt that I could plug the website and dominate the market. In the end, I was wrong. I made more off of ad revenue alone than from sales.

I made several HUGE mistakes in this venture. Yes... I had a niche. Yes... It was targeted. I did everything the pros will tell you to do. I had a huge following. I got the traffic and the attention. I did succeed in making money from adds but the product was a failure.

Market and competition were my major mistakes. It was a tiny market and even though there was only one competitor, that was enough for this market. Some things are better left alone, and this was one of them. I should have left it alone.

You have to look at the size of the pie. If your niche only does 10k in sales a year, then how big of a piece of that pie are you aiming for? (This can also be applied to readers, viewers, etc.) If there are four people sharing that pie, that would make 2.5k a reasonable slice.

2.5k-overhead= A huge waste of my time.

If I would have targeted a larger audiance, such as natural shampoo, or even beauty products it may have been a success. Once I gained success in one of these markets, I could have then focused in and marketed the exact same product for dreadlocks. (Bigger pie)

In the end, a niche won't get you anywhere without the proper understanding. I hope you can learn from the mistakes that i have made in one of my business ventures. I know I have.

I would like to give thanks to @rgeddes for inspiring me to write this up. We had a brief discussion in the comment section of one of his blogs that inspired me to tell this story, and help others to understand this concept. He is an entrepreneur, writer and a mentor for all who read his blogs. I have posted a link below to that blog.

https://steemit.com/life/@rgeddes/entrepreneurs-birds-of-a-feather

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