

Ask HN: How did you discover your niche? - wlfsbrg

How did you arrive at your target audience for your product/service/idea? Did you stumble across them or was it carefully planned out and executed?<p>I'm in the research/discovery phase of finding a market to create a service for and I was curious about how you found your customers. Thanks!
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WillyF
I was a recent college grad who was struggling with the job search process. I
wasn't finding many companies that I was excited about working for, so I
started thinking about how I could make the process better for people like me.
A failed job search evolved into my now somewhat successful (paying all my
living expenses and growing) startup.

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mapster
I stopped trying to 'come up with ideas' and put on a pair of opportunity
glasses. So now I look for opportunities, whereby I measure them, re-measure,
talk with people in the field, re-measure and am now building a service I am
pretty confidant I can turn profitable. My four steps for a start-up:

1\. Measure a Demand a. Ask people b. Do a Poll 2\. Build the Product or
Service a. Do you have the right vision to do the work or coordinate it in the
best way? 3\. Market and Sell 4\. Provide great customer service

Each step is incredibly difficult and requires a lot of luck and work. But I
am in this for the long-term.

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cme
I found my niche by solving my own pains. Think about something thats a pain
in your life, then think about if it could be solved with a simple app, would
you pay for the solution you are thinking about? would others? chances are
people out there also have that issue and might pay.

do a little research, build something and get feedback, you'll pry find your
niche going through that simple process

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tjmaxal
Tell us a little bit more about where you are starting from. This is a pretty
vague question and a lot of the answer depends on what you are aiming for. Are
you trying to start a company or are you just trying to find an application
for a new technology?

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revorad
I launched with a fairly broad product and a number of target user types in
mind. Over time, I've refined my product to match the most responsive user
types and their needs.

