The Simplest Way to Think About Niche Scoring (First-Time Founders)

Market sizing exercises are heavy. TAM/SAM/SOM, bottom-up models, addressable spend - all useful eventually, all overwhelming when you are picking your first niche. Here is the simplest version that catches the wrong picks.

Five Candidates, Five Criteria

Write down five candidate niches you are considering. Score each on five criteria from one to ten. Sum the scores. Pick the highest.

The criteria: reachability, pain frequency, existing spend, differentiation, builder-fit. Five minutes per candidate. Total round: about half an hour.

How to Score Reachability

Can you find this audience without paying for ads? LinkedIn search, niche communities, Twitter, Reddit, conferences. If yes, score high. If only via paid ads, score low. Niches that require paid ads to reach are expensive to start in.

How to Score Pain Frequency

How often does the trigger event happen? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Daily problems get bought. Annual problems do not. Score honestly.

How to Score Existing Spend

Do customers in this niche currently pay for anything adjacent? If yes, market exists. If no, you are educating a market, which is much harder.

How to Score Differentiation

Can you describe in one sentence why your version is different? If you cannot, the niche is too crowded or you have not thought hard enough.

How to Score Builder-Fit

Do you have something unfair - existing audience, expertise, network, lived experience? Without it, every niche is harder than it should be.

What to Do With the Result

The highest-scoring niche is your starting point. Run problem interviews against it. The score is not destiny - it is a filter. Bad niches fail the filter. Good niches still need validation.