wtf is a niche?

does anyone know?

Before we get started, a reminder that I’m currently running a community that helps with questions exactly like this… except catered to your specific business. If you’re having troubling figuring out a niche, join here.

Everyone throws the word “niche” around like it’s obvious.

Like you’re supposed to just wake up one day and know yours. But if you stop and ask ten different people what a niche actually is, you’ll get ten different answers, and nine of them will be wrong. Some will say it’s an industry. Some will say it’s an age bracket. Some will say it’s a random list of interests. Nobody’s on the same page, and meanwhile you’re left staring at a blank screen wondering why this feels harder than it should.

So let’s actually define it:

A niche is where a specific person meets a specific problem and you guide them to a specific transformation.

That’s it. Simple. But not small.

Because once you have it, a niche feeds everything. It tells you what stories to write, what examples to use, which metaphors land. It points you to the platforms worth showing up on and the communities worth planting yourself in. It shows you who to DM and who to ignore. It even decides what not to do, all the wasted experiments you can skip because they’ll never matter to your person.

A niche is not just marketing. It is the lens for your whole business. And once you know it, every move has a reason, every choice has a target, and the fog starts to clear.

But here is the part nobody tells you: you do not find your niche in a demographic.

You do not find it by circling “men 18–34” on a worksheet. You do not find it by saying “millennial moms.” You do not find it by slicing people into categories like Sims characters.

You find it in a story.

Because people are not categories. They are arcs. They are contradictions and regrets and bad habits and whispered lies they believe about themselves. They are unfinished endings they dream about but would never admit out loud. Until you can see the story they are living, you cannot carve the niche where you fit.

Here is what I mean.

He is 22. And every night looks the same.

Work. Weed. Xbox. Regret.

He tells himself it will be different tomorrow, he will hit the gym, cook something real, maybe finally start turning his life around. But tomorrow comes, and it never is. The alarm goes off, and that heavy weight in his chest whispers the same thing it whispered yesterday: why bother?

It was not always like this. In high school he was fast, ran track, felt sharp, felt alive. He had coaches, teammates, parents cheering him on. Structure. Momentum. A reason to push himself. Somewhere between late-night gaming binges, a girlfriend who ghosted, and the burnout of a freshman year he never finished, he lost it.

Now he is drifting. His friends are moving forward, finishing degrees, getting jobs, posting highlight reels on Instagram. He scrolls through it all, joint in one hand, controller in the other, muttering excuses even he does not believe anymore. He tells himself he will get back on track, he will feel strong again, he will take life seriously. But deep down he is scared. Scared he has already missed the window. Scared that this, the haze, the numbness, the endless loop, is just who he is now.

He does not talk about it out loud, but it gnaws at him every night: Am I broken, or can I actually change?

That is the story.

And when you break it down, here is the niche hiding inside:

• The person. Not all 22-year-olds, not all gamers, not all stoners. Too vague, too flat. The story tells you the real thing: young guys who feel stuck in a cycle of bad habits. The ones who wake up every morning already disappointed in themselves. The ones whose lives look fine from the outside, job, friends, weekends, memes, but inside it feels like cement is hardening around their ankles.

• The problem. Not the weed or the Xbox or the scrolling. Those are just props in the play, the background noise. The real problem is the loop: the numbing, the escaping, the way he fills the silence so he does not have to hear the voice in his head saying you are failing. It is not about distraction, it is about disappointment, and the shame of watching yourself keep choosing it anyway.

• The transformation. He does not want a six-pack or a hustle routine or some perfect morning ritual. He wants to stop numbing. He wants to start stacking wins, small ones at first, the kind that prove he is not broken. And underneath all of it, he just wants to feel like a real human being again. To wake up and feel present in his own life instead of watching it like a rerun. To laugh with his friends and actually mean it. To look in the mirror and not flinch. To feel alive, awake, human.

Put it together, and you have:

Helping young guys who feel stuck in self-destructive loops stop numbing themselves, start stacking wins, and finally feel like real human beings again.

That is a niche.

The story gave you the texture, the fog, the regret, the whispered “why bother.” The niche is the clean thread you pull from it: the person, the problem, the transformation.

And if you want to find yours, do not fill out fake worksheets. Do not guess. Ask yourself about the story.

• Where are they stuck? At the false start, the endless loop, the breaking point, or right before the breakthrough?

  • For our 22-year-old, it is the endless loop: every Monday he swears he will change, and every Friday he is right back on the couch with a controller in his hand.

• What chapter do they keep rereading, hoping the ending will change?

  • His chapter is the same failed promise: the unopened gym membership, the meal plan he never follows, the planner collecting dust on his desk. He keeps flipping back to page one, hoping this time will be different.

• What lie do they believe about themselves that makes them think they cannot escape?

  • His lie is “I am just lazy. I am not built like those guys who actually follow through.” That belief has more power over him than the weed or the Xbox ever did.

• What rock do they trip over in every single chapter?

  • For him it is the alarm clock. He sets it, he snoozes it, he hates himself for it. Every chapter begins the same way: late start, broken promise, spiral into shame.

• What is the ending they secretly dream of but would never admit out loud?

  • He dreams of looking in the mirror and actually seeing a man he respects. Not shredded, not perfect, just proud. He dreams of waking up clear-headed, walking into the world with energy, and finally proving to himself he is not broken.

Answer those, and suddenly you do not just have an “audience.”

You have a protagonist.

You have a story.

And from that story, you can carve your niche.

Because every person you will ever help is already out there, stuck in their loop, whispering “why bother” to themselves in the dark.

Your job is not to save them all.

Your job is to find the one story you can step into, and make sure it does not end the way they fear it will.

So let me ask you this: what is your person’s story?

Where are they stuck, what lie are they believing, what ending do they secretly dream of?

Hit reply and tell me, I want to see the story you are about to step into.