The Niche of One (how to be authentic as a creator)

“How do I find my niche?”

Trust me, I’ve been there.

• I had more than one interest

• I found most popular niches boring

• I felt creative but never had an outlet to express them

• I had many different skills but lacked ideas to combine them

• I didn’t know how to make my unique talents and passions profitable

I think a lot of people are confused about what niche they should pick…

I felt unauthentic and struggled to post content consistently.

On one hand, I thought:

“If I post for one group of people they will resonate with me more”

and the other thought was:

“If I want to reach everyone I won’t impact anyone at all”

But that is where I went wrong.

The reason big brands like Coca-Cola pay so much to show the lifestyle and partner with public figures is because they need the personal touch.

They lack relatability.

They Lack the one thing that you have an upper hand on.

What is a niche of one?

Derived from the term “Company of One” from Paul Jarvis, a “niche of one” is exactly what it sounds like: a niche centered around you. It’s a unique concoction of your skills and interests and a collection of thoughts.

It is the concept of always having a blue ocean to swim in, free to explore with no competition, avoiding the red ocean where most are living in dread, constantly competing for their survival.

Now things may be starting to clear up for you but to make a clear distinction we will dissect what a traditional niche looks like.

A Traditional Niche VS. A Niche of One

If you’ve ever heard the saying:

“the riches are in the niches,” they’re talking about the idea that dominating one small subcategory can make a profitable impact on your business.

This means the more specific you get with defining what you do and who you serve, the more return you can get for your marketing efforts.

It makes sense right?

A heart surgeon makes significantly more impact and money than a regular general doctor.

A niche is a very small category within a larger category. Consider some of the most popular categories:

• Health & Fitness

• Business & Money

• Personal Development

• Productivity & Tools

• etc.

These are very broad categories. So when experts advise businesses to niche down, they mean to pick a smaller subcategory. This will ensure that the audience is very segmented and targeted and becomes far easier to market to.

Typically, large companies will pick their niche based on a vertical industry or a horizontal market. But small business owners must niche at the intersection of both. This is because they can never get a return on investment in their marketing dollars without a specific game plan.

This strategy forces you to “specialize.”

Here is an example of the Broad Category of Health/Fitness:

This way of building businesses and brands has worked tremendously well and always will. However, we are entering the era of personal branding, and because of that a “niche of one” is vastly different.

We are in an attention economy and creativity is a pillar that stands tall. To be most creative, you should pull your inspiration from many sources. The more creative you are with spreading your ideas the more attention you will garner.

When you take on the unconventional strategy of creating a niche of one, you are taking a combinatory approach to creating a business around your passions or interests.

Building a multi-potential Niche

I went to fashion school, and prior to that I was interested in music, fitness, video games, art, and many ‘side quests’. In fashion school, I switched back and forth between fashion and business studies within the practice. Then I eventually quit as I learned new information online that opened my mind to new opportunities.

Now I still love fashion and music, but also am extremely passionate about online education, philosophy, productivity, and the creator economy.

The point is, that I shifted my interests and curiosities over time. I didn’t stay stagnant. If I had never explored my interests I would have never experienced growth of any kind.

People in the modern world have varying interests. In psychology, this phenomenon is called multi-potentiality. It marks not only the artistic or intellectual ability to excel in two or more different fields but simply the curiosity or preference to follow different passions. If you’re provided with appropriate environments (like the Internet) you can select and develop several competencies to a high level (in a very short period).

"Build a Personal Monopoly: A unique intersection of skills, interests, and personality traits that make you one-of-a-kind." — David Perell

People have multiple interests (multi-potentiality)

• build a brand around your multiple interests

• Fix your problems and show results

• Sell the solution through your products

Build a brand that can allow you to pivot at any moment so you have the freedom to grow.

Just by taking a chance to share your creations, passions, and personality online, you become a creator.

Your skills and interests as a creator become your brand. And your brand could very well become the next sensation on the Internet. But without testing it, it will never be a possibility.

1-Person Show

Businesses until now:

“You need to hire to grow”

New age creators:

“Through no-code software and AI, I’ll build a billion dollar 1-person business”

The age of the digital renaissance is now.

Through the era of automation and low- to no-code platforms, it isn’t a necessity to hire tons of people to buy back your freedom and scale. You can do it now with automated systems.

— Sure, contractors here and there can be helpful for certain projects.

Your Personal Monopoly

When building your brand and your many interests, aim to center everything around a core problem that you are aiming to solve in your own life:

Examples are:

• becoming fit whilst being busy

• Earning a creative income

• Sewing your own clothes to combat fashion overconsumption

• Living an amazing life with a low carbon footprint

• How to eat healthy while enjoying yourself

• etc.

When you tie your interests into the core problem you gain a larger audience and educate them on your cause. This allows you to:

• grow a large audience

• allow yourself to pivot

• build more awareness around your product

Fix your problems, shine awareness on them, and be authentic. This is all you need to flourish in the digital economy.

This positions you as the go-to person around the core problem you are aiming to solve, whilst being broad and attracting a large audience. Differentiate yourself by choosing your aesthetics right now that fit your personality and perspective.

Find your Ikigai

How to find your niche of one:

• reflect

• experiment

• Feedback Loop

Your assignment must be to create things only you believe in and love.

Ikigai, the Japanese word for “reason for being,” is a holistic way of looking at your purpose. If you can find and live your Ikigai, it is said you will never have to work a day in your life again.

The concept of Ikigai is broken down into four areas:

• what you love

• what you’re good at doing

• what you can get paid for

• what the world needs.

The space in which all these areas overlap upon one another is your Ikigai.

It requires patience and dedicated reflection to be able to start to find one’s Ikigai, take action, and follow your curiosities.

So to summarise:

Here are the benefits of having a niche of one personal brand:

• You can show you are human.

• You can show your failures and successes.

• You can share your many interests.

Don’t hold back, explore your curiosities. This is what makes you, you.

I should not be the entrepreneur who runs a content agency.

I should be the music-creating, fashion university drop-out content creator who runs a content agency.

Having a niche of one, allows you to pivot at any moment due to how broad you are with your content. Not only that but people buy into you as a person and not necessarily the information you are talking about.

Sure, Alex Hormozi has great business advice but we find him interesting because he is jacked, wears jorts, nosestrips, and has a cooking show about making high-protein meals.

When you have a niche of one, no one can replace you.

“Sensible people get paid for what they enjoy doing”

— Alan Watts

Here is a tangible example:

Let’s say that I enjoy playing basketball and self-improvement and want to get into online business.

I would record content around your basketball training (b-roll) and create inspiring videos with self-improvement tips layered on top of it.

You can write about self-improvement as a whole as well and draw examples and metaphors from basketball.

At the start, you can reach out to other basketball athletes/creators and help them with their content to monetize and build up your brand in the meantime to launch your own products.

This is just one perspective and method you can go down, but there are infinite possibilities. You also can pivot at any moment away from basketball if you feel like it — it builds authenticity.

An interesting fact that many overlook is that through pulling your many interests and curiosities into your brand you become more specific and niched down.

Through a Niche of One, you are:

• attracting like-minded people

• allowing yourself to pivot anytime

• building your own customers

• being authentic

Most importantly you love what you do.

You are a unique individual with a unique perspective, collection of ideas and experiences, talents, skills, and passions.

I appreciate your support.

— Jay