When Niche Scoring Becomes a Bottleneck (Technical Founders)

Engineers can turn fifteen-minute niche scoring into a month-long analysis. The exercise becomes the destination. Here is the pattern.

The Tell

You have spent three weeks "evaluating niches." Your spreadsheet has new columns. New criteria. Confidence intervals. Sensitivity analysis. The picking has not happened.

Why It Happens

Picking is irreversible-feeling. The analysis lets you defer commitment. Engineers like analysis. The two combine badly.

The Fix

Cap the scoring at fifteen minutes. Five candidates. Five criteria. Pick the highest. Move to interviews. The chosen niche is your next experiment, not your destiny.

What Comes After

Problem interviews against the chosen niche. The interviews validate or kill the niche faster than another month of analysis. If interviews kill it, score five new candidates in another fifteen minutes.