Free Guide: How to choose a profitable niche
Too many would-be entrepreneurs message me every day asking:
"What product should I sell? What's a hot product right now?
It's the wrong question.
As much as it may sound counterintuitive, the question you need to be asking is:
"WHO am I going to sell to?"
You need to focus in on a person.
The best part is – it's easy and makes every next step in your business 10x easier to scale & profit.
Method 1: Choose to serve yourself
Scratch your own itch. It's a saying I'm sure you've heard 100 times by now.
When I first launched my protein bar business back in 2014, it was because I'd gotten sick of paying $30+ for a box of 12 bars.
I knew I could make them for less, and as soon as I began to others at my gym started asking if they could buy them too.
My 1st customer: me.
My 2nd customer: men & women who went to my local gym, wanted to lose weight, but still wanted to eat sweet foods.
I knew what I wanted from a product – clean ingredients, no fillers, great taste, high protein, low carb – and I was passionate about finding a way to make that protein bar and constantly improve upon it.
I'd have done it whether it was just for me or others too.
Within months I was making hundreds of protein bars per day out of my kitchen. It was chaos.
When I launched my Shopify Agency in 2019, it was because I knew how hard it had been for me to find developers I could trust to get a job done for a small merchant, without spending thousands.
My 1st customer: me 5 years ago.
My 2nd customer: small Shopify merchants (<$1M), solo founders, US-based, bootstrapped, on a tight budget to grow their business.
By being specific about who my target market was, it made it infinitely easier to ensure my messaging resonated with my customer.
I only attracted my target customers and cut through the noise of my competitors by talking directly at them.
Within a week I had 6 clients and was turning away work.
Method 2: Choose to serve someone else
When I launched a personal safety brand in 2021 it wasn't because I knew Alarms were a hot product. They were, but no one in the UK, Europe and Australia was building a brand around them.
I wasn't just selling personal safety alarms.
I launched a brand selling Personal Safety Products for 18-24-year-old British girls heading off to university for the first time.
Note how one is a product, and the other is a brand selling to a specific niche audience.
I know the story & journey my customer is on.
I know the obstacles they're about to face as they embark upon their journey, which leads me to my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th products.
All for the same person.
Now you might wonder how & why I ended up building a personal safety brand – it was because far too many of my female friends had had to endure sexual violence & assault.
The more women I spoke to, the more apparent it became how large of a problem this is and that very few businesses existed to help young women.
That company now does £1M+ per year, is an 80% female workforce, donates thousands of products, and 5% of its profits to charities to support young women.
£1,000,000+ in under 12 months.
That's not a brag – that's to convince you of the power of getting specific on WHO your customer is.
How does this apply to you?
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What's a product or service that would make your life easier? Or did recently?
- Or, what's an audience (or an individual person) you'd be excited to serve?
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Who else would be interested in this?
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Where do they hang out? (Online & offline)
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What language & words do they use?
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What podcasts do they listen to?
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Which influencers do they follow?
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Who is already serving this person? (Your competition)
Build a persona & target your person.
There's a fundamental difference between selling a product & acquiring a customer who comes back to your business to buy your products again & again.
Often times said customer is early awaiting your next product launch because it's what they told you they wanted you to sell them next.
They may find you because of Product A, then buy Product B together, and in a month's time come back to buy Product C, then tell you they'd love it if you sold Product D.
When you sell products/solutions to a specific customer, they often hang out with others just like them.
Why does this matter? Because if you sell great products to a particular audience, you'll grow through Word of Mouth.
This means lower acquisition costs than your 'competitor' selling the same or a similar product, but who doesn't have their audience dialled in.
Let's take this further, now that we know who we're going to serve.
They already buy X, Y, Z
Of X, Y, Z which are you excited to sell or make a better version of?
What do the reviews say?
Where does my target customer hang out?
Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
- Build a profitable direct-to-consumer ecommerce brand here.
- Join a community of like-minded entrepreneurs here.
- Work 1:1 with me to grow your brand. (100+ clients)
