>> Look out for non-competitor competitive alternatives: the things people use instead of using an actual product. This can be Post-It notes, an Excel Sheet that does not involve numbers, anything that is a general tool applied to a specific problem. That is where you can find your critical problems, and that is where you can serve your niche best.
This is an overlooked factor by many bootstrapped startups. Rather than copy the competitors features, look at the gaps in the market, that you can build and cater to.
The thing is I am not sure if these so called "niches" can be "looked" into. Most if not all came from one single sources, you are frustrated at the current way of doing it and start asking, there has got to be a better way.
And because you understand the problem so well, you can crave a niche out of it. Simply by looking into things people are doing rarely gives any deep insight that are enough to built something useful.
Author here. I think "looking" is indeed not the right term for this.
Most problem discovery in any market happens through careful qualitative analysis that happens during and after interviews with prospective customers.
Looking at their behavior is a first step to getting a glimpse of what the day-to-day work looks like, and where you as a SaaS could interface with that.
The second step is figuring out customer intent ("what do I want to get done"), problem awareness ("what could be done much better"), pain intensity ("what is unbearable about my work").
Some of those come directly from the prospect, mostly problems where they have high pain and high awareness. Others, you will have to find yourself, such as low-awareness problems. Then, there are problems to dismiss, such as low-pain and non-intent-aligned ones.
To me, a niche represents a group of people you select out of a more general population.
From what you wrote, I understand that we agree that niches don't "exist", they are "defined". That is both a result and a starting point, which makes this whole exercise so hard - it's an iterative approach: you define a niche, you explore their problems, you re-define the niche, explore again, until you have found a critical problem worth solving.
The point is that you can't find problems without communicating with those who have them. Looking won't do. You will need to listen.
Choosing a tiny and, at the time, not too competitive niche was key for me being able to make my current project viable in the 10hrs/week or so of time I had to spend on it. I had no audience at the beginning, either.
Now that I do have an audience and some experience, my next project will be in a somewhat larger niche that overlaps with my current one.
This is an overlooked factor by many bootstrapped startups. Rather than copy the competitors features, look at the gaps in the market, that you can build and cater to.
And because you understand the problem so well, you can crave a niche out of it. Simply by looking into things people are doing rarely gives any deep insight that are enough to built something useful.
Most problem discovery in any market happens through careful qualitative analysis that happens during and after interviews with prospective customers.
Looking at their behavior is a first step to getting a glimpse of what the day-to-day work looks like, and where you as a SaaS could interface with that.
The second step is figuring out customer intent ("what do I want to get done"), problem awareness ("what could be done much better"), pain intensity ("what is unbearable about my work").
Some of those come directly from the prospect, mostly problems where they have high pain and high awareness. Others, you will have to find yourself, such as low-awareness problems. Then, there are problems to dismiss, such as low-pain and non-intent-aligned ones.
To me, a niche represents a group of people you select out of a more general population.
From what you wrote, I understand that we agree that niches don't "exist", they are "defined". That is both a result and a starting point, which makes this whole exercise so hard - it's an iterative approach: you define a niche, you explore their problems, you re-define the niche, explore again, until you have found a critical problem worth solving.
The point is that you can't find problems without communicating with those who have them. Looking won't do. You will need to listen.
Now that I do have an audience and some experience, my next project will be in a somewhat larger niche that overlaps with my current one.