If You Think Your Market Is Too Big, It Is

Niche is a really funny topic in the fitness industry

Because you get the coaches who think they have niched down, because they’re marketing to ‘men who want to get back in shape’

You have people who’ve picked a group, but haven’t really got an outcome for them - e.g. ‘I help women with PCOS’ is fine - but do you help with weight loss, symptom management, fertility etc

And the classic ‘Helping busy professionals’

I think niche is one of the areas where coaches could really benefit from looking outside of fitness

The key thing they’d find?

Every startup starts with a very small market

Because it’s easier to be the go-to in a small market than a large one

When I started out as a performance nutritionist, I happened to stumble into working with strongwoman, powerlifting and olympic weightlifting

This was an accident - but I looked around and there was no one else doing it (well), a clear need (weight category sports) and a very small but everyone-knows-everyone community

Which made it easy to post specific short and long-form content, get a client base of 30 athletes exclusively through referrals (plus some extra work with partners, parents, siblings, friends etc of those people)

PayPal found success with 25% of ‘PowerSellers’ on Ebay who needed what they do

Amazon started with books, and then expanded to similar products before becoming the behemoth it is today

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he slashed the number of products to focus on being great with just a few, for a select group of people who needed them

Niching down isn’t just to make your outcome and offer easier (although it does that)

It makes everything easier

Language specific to their pursuit (e.g. brick workout for triathletes, OMAD for chronic dieters etc)

You know what cultural references to use

And you know where to find them! That could be online in terms of what platform you use

But also in person

If there are coaches who really want to work with founders and entrepreneurs because they truly understand why these people struggle AND want to be in shape (probably status-driven)

They can be highly targeted by going to events, speaking to these people and driving business that way

Starting small and then expanding is ALWAYS easier than starting vague and trying to capture ‘more of the market’