Pieter Levels
Itch-first · SEO + X
The niche is a life he is already living. Digital nomads, remote jobs, AI portraits — each product is a public version of a private spreadsheet.
Stage 01 / 05
Find the niche
Who is this for, and why you?
Famous hackers rarely start with a TAM slide. They start with a person they can reach, a pain they have felt, or a keyword they can own. Niche is a distribution decision disguised as a product decision.
Questions they actually ask
- 01Can I talk to 50 of these people this month without ads?
- 02Would I use this weekly if someone else built it?
- 03Is the buyer the same person as the user?
- 04Can I describe the niche in one sentence a stranger understands?
Tactics for this stage · 9
Niche · Think
Scratch your own itch
Build the tool you already pay for, hack together, or complain about. The niche is you plus people like you — which is the only audience you can describe without a survey.
Pieter Levels, countless indie makers
Niche · Before
Talk to 100 buyers
Before writing code, speak to a hundred people who have the problem. Count how many will pay — not how many say it is 'interesting'.
Noah Kagan
Niche · Before · After
Audience first, product second
Build a public point of view until a crowd gathers. Then sell the thing they already ask you for. The product is a consequence of attention, not the other way around.
Arvid Kahl, Justin Welsh, Daniel Vassallo
Niche · After
Own a keyword
Find a search phrase people already type with money in their pocket, then become the canonical page for it. Niche = the query you can rank for and convert.
Patrick McKenzie (patio11), Pieter Levels
Niche · Think
Build for a community you already belong to
Do not pick a vertical from a listicle. Pick the group where you already have Slack invites, in-jokes, and trust. Embedded beats adjacent.
Arvid Kahl — The Embedded Entrepreneur
Niche · Think · Launch
Surf a platform wave
When a new capability (AI image models, a social network, a regulation) creates a job that did not exist last year, wrap it in a paid product before the wave gets crowded.
Danny Postma, Pieter Levels, Greg Isenberg
Niche · Think · After
Sell picks and shovels
Instead of competing in the gold rush, sell the boilerplate, templates, and distribution tools the rush needs. Your customer is the maker, not the maker's customer.
Marc Lou, Indie Hackers tooling wave
Before · After · Niche
A personal content system
Turn one worldview into a repeating content machine: a hook, a story, a lesson, a CTA. The person is the media company. The product is the store.
Justin Welsh
Niche · Before · After
Community, then product
Gather people around a scene. Listen for the software they still duct-tape. The community is the moat; the product is how you charge for a job the scene repeats.
Greg Isenberg, Indie Hackers itself, Small Bets
How operators handle it
Marc Lou
Picks & shovels · X-native
Makers with a credit card and a deadline. He does not hunt a vertical in the world — he hunts the people who hunt verticals.
Danny Postma
Paid acquisition · wave rider
Professionals who need photos and will not book a studio. The wave was the model. The niche was the job to be done.
Patrick McKenzie
SEO + copy · charge more
A query with commercial intent and weak results. Teachers searching for bingo cards. Clinics tired of no-shows. The niche is the search plus the budget.
Noah Kagan
Validation · email
A group you can actually reach this month. Proof is conversations, not a persona deck. Interesting is a trap. Pain plus budget is a niche.
Arvid Kahl
Embedded · audience-first
A community you could message tonight without sounding like a vendor. Vertical SaaS works when you are not a tourist.
Justin Welsh
@thejustinwelsh
Content system · LinkedIn
Turning a personal content system into a one-person media company
Rob Walling
@robwalling
Bootstrap compounder · email
Start Small, Stay Small — bootstrap compounding as a go-to-market
Daniel Vassallo
@dvassallo
Small bets · audience
Leaving the big-company script for a portfolio of small, public bets
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
Growth loops · networks
Network effects, cold starts, and loops versus funnels
Sean Ellis
@SeanEllis
Experimentation · PMF gate
Product-market fit as a gate, North Stars, and experiment cadence
Greg Isenberg
@gregisenberg
Scene-first · community
Spotting scenes early and building community-led products inside them
Sahil Lavingia
@shl
Creator rails · simplicity
Building in public, simplicity as positioning, creators as the niche