How to find your niche? There has been much talk about finding your niche and specializing in it. But what’s the best way of doing that?

If you are interested in building your brand or creating a living online, you must have stumbled upon this suggestion.

Build. Your. Niche.

And it’s excellent advice. Ultimately, a brand is about owning a word or phrase in a consumer’s mind. If you have a niche, then it’s easier to do that.

James Clear? Building habits. Nike? Athletic wear. Tesla? Electric Car. 

There’s no doubt that it’s an excellent suggestion. But it’s easier said than done.

How to Find Your Niche?

Most people get tempted to reverse engineer the process. What do your consumers like? What if you try to be like that?

For example, maybe you are in a market like Saudi Arabia where gasoline is dirt cheap. Would the audience be interested in an electric car because it saves fuel costs? Probably not. But will Tesla start making gas-driven cars for that market? Probably not.

The good side of starting with the consumer angle is understanding market demand first. However, in such cases, you may end up with a product that you have no expertise in.

For personal branding as well, this will mean trying to change into someone else. That never works.

Here’s what you should do instead.

Step 01: Figure out the supply side

By the supply side, I mean your competencies.

Yes, you may think that you can adapt according to the needs of the market. It might be partially true. But it’s better if you find something where you have considerable strength.

List down what you like and what you are good at. Do you take pride in them? Do you sell them enough? Or are you trying to fit into a narrative told by society?

The list might look like this

• Gaming
• Making Videos
• Cooking Italian food
• Speaking Bengali

…and so on.

Step 02: Now let’s look into the demand side

Check if there’s sizable interest for each of the items on your list (from step one).

You can do this by understanding google trends, and search volume or by checking Medium tags. If your niche is too small, you need to deprioritize that item.

Step 03: Create an enticing salad

Your interest likely has high demand but also high competition.

That is where your creativity comes into play.

From the list we developed earlier, you can be tempted to create a gaming channel or a cooking channel. But there are thousands of them. How are you going to stand out?

You need to mix those items to create an enticing salad. What about a video channel where you teach how to cook Italian food? But instead of using English, you use Bengali as the primary language.

By mixing 2–3 interests, you can narrow down your target audience. You will still likely have a sizable market, but way less competition.

There you have it. Your customized niche.

Final Thoughts- How to Find Your Niche

We often make the mistake of trying to find a niche in broad topics.

That’s too tough.

Instead, narrow the topic down to a point where it still has sizable demand. But make sure the topic is something that interests YOU. Otherwise, you won’t be able to continue building your brand or business on that.

This article was first published in Medium.