It starts with a DM. Always. Like, clockwork. The kind of message that pops into your inbox somewhere between your third iced coffee and an existential scroll through your feed.
“I’ve tried everything. Lead magnets. SEO. Landing pages. Video. Vlogs. Voodoo. Still nothing.”
Cue dramatic sigh and, possibly, a very relatable meme about setting your business goals on fire and starting a cat café instead.
And every time I read one of those messages, I want to reach through the screen and offer snacks and a warm hug and say, “You’re not broken. You’re just not solving the right problem yet.”
That’s the part no one talks about. That the heart of every great business—the kind that makes people sit up and say, “Oh. This is for me”—starts not with what you want to sell, but with what they need fixed.
It’s not about building a brand that looks good on Canva. It’s about being the answer to someone’s 2 a.m. Google search.
Seriously. That’s what a niche actually is.
It’s not a buzzword or a boring business term. It’s you becoming a very specific kind of superhero. You don’t save the entire multiverse—you save one planet. One type of person. From one kind of problem.
You’re not generic Spider-Person. You’re Spider-Niche. (Just go with it.)
Because here’s the thing. Most of us are scared to pick a niche because we think it’s limiting. Like choosing a Hogwarts house and being stuck there forever (shoutout to all the confused Ravenclaw-Slytherins out there). But it’s not limiting. It’s liberating. It’s saying, “Hey, I don’t need to be everyone’s person. I just need to be your person.”
Let’s say you’re a health coach. “Helping people get healthy” is a big, beautiful, vague vibe. But when you say, “I help nerdy women who hate the gym and love cinnamon rolls find a workout they don’t loathe,” suddenly the cinnamon-roll-loving crowd is standing up like, “YES HI HELLO IT’S ME.”
You’ve gone from “fitness content” to solving a very specific problem: working out feels awful and I’d rather do literally anything else. You’re not just helping them sweat. You’re helping them feel seen.
That’s the magic.
Niches aren’t about excluding people. They’re about attracting the right ones. The ones who feel like you’re reading their diary. The ones who say, “This feels like it was made for me,” and hit the “book now” button without needing a ten-email funnel and a bonus eBook.
Because the truth is, people don’t pay for general help. They pay for specific solutions. They don’t want a vague vibe. They want their exact problem solved. Wrapped in a bow, if possible. Maybe with a free sticker.
So if you’re sitting there wondering why your business isn’t taking off, even though you’ve tried all the “right” strategies, here’s a plot twist: you might just be solving a problem too vaguely. Or worse—solving a problem they don’t even know they have yet.
What do they actually want? Not the big vision board stuff, but the right-now, real-life pain points. They don’t want “financial freedom.” They want to stop crying when they open their budgeting app. They don’t want “social media growth.” They want to stop posting into the void and wondering if anyone’s listening.
Your niche is where your weird little gifts meet their very real struggle. That’s where the story begins. The meet-cute between their problem and your solution.
So forget “target markets” for a second. Ask yourself: what’s the problem I can solve so specifically that someone out there will say, “I didn’t even know that existed, but I need it right now”?
Then build everything around that.
Not for everyone.
Just for them.
Because the real secret? The minute you stop trying to help everyone is the minute your people finally find you.
And they will.
Probably with a cinnamon roll.
