Struggling to stand out? Here’s how to pick a winning niche and dominate your market

If you havenā€™t read the first blog post yet, check it out here: Validate Your Startup Idea Using AI. Also, watch the video here: Watch the Video. Last time, we validated if your idea was worth pursuing. Now, letā€™s nail your niche so you can build a category-defining business. Too many founders fail because they chase too many customers instead of OWNING a niche. If youā€™re stuck spinning your wheels, this guide will get you laser-focused.

šŸ’”Example: Instead of a generic pet grooming business, go niche: “Mobile grooming in Tri-cities for anxious dogs who hate traditional salons.” Now youā€™re the only choice.

 

red egg stands-out among white eggs

šŸšØBiggest mistake? Chasing too many customers instead of OWNING a niche.

šŸ† Less competition
šŸ† Faster sales
šŸ† Higher pricing power

Don’t worry about the total addressable market (TAM)


Iā€™ve been niche slapped multiple times by multiple people, and I learned a tough lesson when my sales & marketing dollars werenā€™t working for me. I was stuck spinning my wheels, fearing that niching down would limit my opportunities. I grew up believing in this quote.

Specialization is in fact only a fancy form of slavery wherein the ā€˜expertā€™ is fooled into accepting a slavery by making him feel that he in turn is a socially and culturally preferred – ergo, highly secure – lifelong position. – Richard Buckminster Fuller

Moreover, AI is breaking down the barriers of specialized knowledge, enabling us to become holistic and systems thinkers. Rather than being confined to expertise in one narrow area, AI empowers us to see patterns, connect insights across industries, and make better strategic decisions. But hereā€™s the shift: Think of niching down as a way to identify & directly communicate to your audienceā€”not as modern slavery.

As Alex Hormozi says, “A good offer makes people stupid to say no.” Instead of throwing money at marketing that doesnā€™t convert, pivot to lay a strong foundation for your business and find the fastest path to cash flow. This is what investors loveā€”a clear niche with a predictable revenue stream.

When you own a niche, your market will naturally expand. Amazon started with books. Now they sell everything. Stay focused!

šŸŽÆ Now, letā€™s find your niche using AI

Knowing you need a niche is one thing – finding the right one is another. Letā€™s break it down step by step. Follow these steps to filter out distractions, validate your market, and position yourself for success.

Step 1: Find your market/founder fit

Forget “market research” and “product/market fit” for a second. What niche actually fits YOU?

āœ… Who do you WANT to work with? (e.g., startup founders, athletes, parents, tech execs)
āœ… What do you LOVE doing? (e.g., strategy, design, AI automation)
āœ… What unique skills or past wins do you have? (Your unfair advantage!)
āœ… Are you creating a brand-new market? (Congrats, youā€™re a Category Leader. šŸš€)

šŸ‘‰ Pick a niche that excites you – because youā€™re about to go ALL IN.

Step 2: Let AI pinpoint you best niches

šŸ“ Before diving into AI-powered filtering, take a moment to refine your niche manually. Either update the Jobs-To-Be-Done framework from the previous blog post, or provide AI with details about your skills, experience, passion, and insights from conversations with friends, family, or industry peers to help carve out your niche more effectively.

Now, letā€™s put AI to work! Use this prompt to quickly refine and prioritize your top 3 niche ideas based on:

  • Skill & experience alignment
  • Market urgency
  • Competition vs. opportunity

šŸ›  AI Prompt:

Based on my {passion}, {interests}, {skills} and {experience} , can you refine and prioritize the results above ? Consider:
1. Which niche aligns best with my passion?
2. Which niche aligns best with my expertise?
3. Which niche aligns best with my interests?
4. Which niche will help me succeed and sustain in my business?
5. Which niche has the highest urgency for a solution?
6. Which niche has strong demand but low competition?
Rate the attributes on a scale of 1 to 5.
Provide the output in a concise markdown table format with ten columns: Need, Context, Desired Outcome, Passion, Interest, Expertise, Success, Urgency, Competition, Recommendation

šŸ’”Pick a niche that excites youā€”because youā€™re about to go ALL IN.

Step 3: šŸ”Ø NAIL your niche

šŸ’°This step is inspired by Alex Hormoziā€™s $100M Offers framework. Learn more from his original work here: Pick Your Niche Checklist – Acquisition.com. Your niche must pass the NAIL Frameworkā€”this is your final filter before committing. If a niche fails one of these tests, tweak it or pivot. This ensures you’re selecting a stable, profitable, and reachable niche based on real customer needs, not assumptions.

nail-your-niche

šŸ›  AI Prompt:

While Alex Hormoziā€™s Pain, Purchasing Power, Easy to Target, and Growing framework works well, weā€™ve restructured it using the Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) framework to make it more actionable, customer-centric, and sustainable over time. Our new framework is called NAIL (Need, Affordability, Interest and Longevity).

Need: Instead of focusing solely on pain points, we use Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) to define what customers are actively trying to accomplish. A job is not just a needā€”itā€™s when, where, and why customers are struggling to achieve a goal.

Affordability: Instead of guessing if customers can afford your product, we map purchasing power to job participants. Not every job is directly paid for by the job performerā€”some stakeholders (parents, managers, businesses) pay for the job to be done.

Interest: Instead of guessing if customers can afford your product, we map purchasing power to job participants. Not every job is directly paid for by the job performerā€”some stakeholders (parents, managers, businesses) pay for the job to be done

Longevity: Instead of just looking at market growth, we analyze the stability of the job over time. Some jobs never go away (e.g., housing, health, education). Others disappear. If a job remains, look at unmet needsā€”whatā€™s frustrating about current solutions?

Assess the previous results using NAIL Framework.

Provide the output in a concise markdown table format with ten columns: Need, Context, Desired Outcome, Affordability, Interest, Longevity, Passion, Expertise, NAIL Result, Recommendation. NAIL Result is either pass or fail based on your assessment.

Step 4: Generating a value proposition

Letā€™s revisit how you sound when you say your value proposition.

šŸ›  AI Prompt:
Using this information, can you give me five options for one-line slogan in the format of “We help [target customer] achieve [desired result] without [painful trade-off].

šŸ‘‰ Compare this with the value proposition output from the previous blog. Night and day, right?

Step 5: Go all in on your niche!

āœ… Pick ONE niche & dominate it
āœ… Craft a laser-focused offer
āœ… Test messaging & refine
āœ… Market HARD to your perfect-fit customers

āš ļø Reminder: Donā€™t get distracted. The riches are in the niches.

The best founders aren’t the ones with the most ideas – they are the ones who commit to one niche and execute relentlessly. Find yours and own it! šŸš€


Ready to discover your perfect niche? Book a FREE Strategy call now and let’s turn your business idea into a market success!

Have you ever had a great idea, only to wonder if anyone would actually pay for it

Youā€™re excited, maybe even convinced itā€™s the next big thing. But how do you know if itā€™s worth pursuing before spending thousands of dollars? Most founders dive into building without knowing the answer – and thatā€™s why 90% of startups fail. Before you invest thousands into development, letā€™s validate your idea using AI – fast and for free.

In $100M Offers, Alex Hormozi states: “The degree of the pain will be proportional to the price you will be able to charge.” The stronger the pain, the higher the potential value of your solution. Easier said than done, right? Most founders struggle to pinpoint the real pain their customers are facing. They either focus too much on the solution they want to build or assume customers will automatically see the value. But if you can’t clearly define the problem, you can’t create a compelling solution – let alone charge a premium for it.

Most people think they need expensive consultants to validate their idea. But hereā€™s the good newsā€”you donā€™t. Instead of guessing or spending months doing research, you can get answers instantly using AI and the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) framework.

entrepreneur celebrating success with idea

Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) is a customer-centric framework that helps businesses understand why people “hire” a product or service to solve a specific problem. Instead of focusing on features, JTBD focuses on the outcome customers want, making it easier to design solutions that truly meet their needs.

What is the fastest way to validate a startup idea

šŸ’”At the end of this post, youā€™ll walk away with a ready-to-use framework to sharpen your startup idea using AI.

āœ… Use AI-powered prompts and the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework to identify real customer pain points before building

āœ… Shift the focus from your solution to the real problem customers face.

āœ… Give you a step-by-step AI-powered approach to refine your idea and make it more compelling.

Note: This is AI-guided advice designed to help refine your idea, but itā€™s crucial to conduct your own due diligence to validate and fine-tune the output based on real-world feedback.

So, how do you make sure your idea isnā€™t a waste of time? Letā€™s break it down step by step

Market validation is the process of testing whether there is real demand for your product or service before investing heavily in development. Hereā€™s how you can put AI to work and get market validation in minutes. 

Prompt 1: Setting AI temperature to minimize hallucinations

System: You are an AI model that provides highly accurate and reliable answers. Set temperature to 0.1 to minimize uncertainty and hallucinations.

Prompt 2: Assigning AI the role of a market research analyst

System: You are a Market Research Analyst specializing in [Industry]. Your job is to analyze and validate startup concepts by leveraging industry trends, customer insights, and competitive analysis.

Prompt 3: Setting context for Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) analysis

User: I have an idea to [describe startup idea].
Using the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework, provide a structured background analysis:
– What is the core job customers are trying to accomplish?
– What is the exhaustive list of solutions currently available?
– What pain points exist with each of the currently available solutions?
– What are the top 10 unmet needs in the priority of customer pain points?

Please present them in a markdown table with two columns: SOLUTION, PAIN POINTS

Prompt 4: Identifying job participants & stakeholders

User: Now identify the exhaustive list of all the job participants, including (but not limited to):

– Who is job performer (the one who is doing the job)?
– Who influences the job performer?
– Who are the decision-makers?
– Who pays for the solution?
– Who has the final say in the decision-making process?
– What role do other stakeholders play in achieving this job?

Prompt 5: Mapping jobs, context, goals, and metrics

User: For each job performer and participant, identify:
1. The job they are trying to do
2. The context in which they are performing the job
3. The objective or goal of this job
4. The expected outcome
5. How to measure if they have succeeded in the job.

Summarize the results in a markdown table containing JOB PERFORMER or participant name, SITUATION/CONTEXT, MOTIVATION/GOAL, EXPECTED OUTCOME, and SUCCESS METRIC.

Prompt 6: Generating a value proposition

User: Using this information, can you give me a one-line slogan in the format of “We help [target customer] achieve [desired result] without [painful trade-off].

Prompt 7: Analyzing market competition

User: List the TOP 10 products or services in the market that address one or more of these jobs in a markdown table containing:
– Product or Service Name
– Market Position
– Jobs they directly address or solve.

Time to take action!

By now, youā€™ve seen how AI can help you:

āœ… Shift from solution-first thinking to a customer-first mindset.

āœ… Use the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework to define the real market need.

āœ… Identify key stakeholders and decision-makersbeyond just the job performer.

āœ… Refine your startup idea step-by-step without guesswork or costly consultants.

šŸ’” But learning is just the first stepā€”execution is what separates ideas from businesses.

Which AI model should you use?

Depending on your needs, different AI models can provide better insights:

  • ChatGPT (OpenAI) ā€“ Best for structured research, creativity, and business strategy. Handles Jobs-to-Be-Done well.
  • Claude (Anthropic) ā€“ Best for longer context memory and market trend analysis. Great for iterative refinement of ideas.
  • Google Gemini (formerly Bard) ā€“ Best for integrating with real-time Google search data to get the latest competitive insights.

šŸ’” Recommendation: Start with ChatGPT or Claude for structured analysis and idea refinement. If you need market data, use Google Gemini.

Before you spend time and money building, letā€™s test your idea together.


Book a free consult now and get expert feedback – so you can move forward with confidence