Riches in Niches
The fastest way to get rich is to get small: one inch wide, one mile deep.
IN THE LANE OF NAVAL RAVIKANT
The 150-meeting problem
Picture me a couple of years ago. I run a social media agency. I'll sell to anyone with a logo and a pulse: restaurants, real estate, gyms, coaches, a dentist who found me on Instagram. I take 150 sales meetings. Real ones. Coffees, calls, decks, follow-ups. After all that grind, I've barely closed 1 or 2 clients. And here's the part that stings: not a single one of them stayed. So I did what everyone does next. I tried to fix it by going wider.
150 meetings, 1 to 2 clients, zero who stayed. The math of being for everyone.
I'm closing almost nobody. I sell to every industry. My instinct (and probably yours) is that I'm not casting a wide enough net.
If you wanted to fix a business that sells to everyone and closes almost no one, what's the move?
Going wider felt safe because it felt like more shots on goal. But when you're for everyone, every prospect is comparing you to a hundred other generalists, and the only lever left is price. The counterintuitive truth: I closed more by deliberately turning most of the market away. I stopped being a graphic-design-for-anyone shop and became infographics-for-surgeons.
When you're for everyone, you're the default choice for no one.
What I actually did
I didn't invent a new service. I didn't get smarter or more talented overnight. I took the exact same thing I was already doing and pointed it at one slice of the world: surgeons. A specific kind of surgeon, actually (which kind is my edge, so I'll keep that to myself). That's the whole trick. Not 'graphic design.' Infographics for surgeons. Not 'a coach.' A sleep coach for new mothers. Not 'a caterer.' The only Jamaican restaurant in Bombay. Same skill, surgically aimed.
You don't need a new skill. You need a smaller target.
Same me. Same service. Same pitch deck, basically. The only thing that changed is that now I only talk to surgeons and I go networking instead of spraying.
After niching down to surgeons, how many meetings do you think it took me to land 5 clients?
Unfocused: 150 meetings, 1 to 2 clients, none retained. Niched: 10 meetings, 5 clients. That's not a tweak, that's a different business. When you're the only person obsessing over a surgeon's specific problem, you stop competing on price and start being the undeniable option. The close rate, the retention, the pricing power, all of it moves at once.
Narrowing the target didn't shrink the prize. It multiplied my hit rate by an order of magnitude.
Riches in the Niches: one inch wide, one mile deep
Here's the model. Your goal is to become the undeniable option for a specific customer with a specific service. Not 'better than everyone at everything.' The undeniable option for one small group. Why it works: when you're one inch wide and one mile deep, nobody is thinking about that customer the way you are. You out-care, out-understand, and out-specialize every generalist on earth, because they're spread across the whole map and you've planted your flag on one square foot of it. The reward stack is real: higher close rates, easier sales, premium pricing, better retention, and leverage over your own operations. Less competition, more certainty, better life. The counterintuitive part most people never accept: less is more. The instinct under pressure is to add verticals and widen. The winners subtract until they're the only name that comes to mind.
Riches are in the niches. The market will pay a premium to the person who is unmistakably for them.
How to spot a niche worth owning
Not every narrow slice is a good one. Before you plant your flag, run the customer through five quick checks: 1. Are they in real pain? (Pain is the engine.) 2. Are they easy to reach? (Can you actually find them in one place?) 3. Can they afford you? (Ability to buy is non-negotiable.) 4. Is the space growing, not dying? 5. Most important: is competition low? (Is anyone else obsessed with exactly this person?) Surgeons hit all five for me. A good niche is usually just an existing service aimed at a segment where these five line up.
Pain, reachable, can pay, growing, uncontested. Five boxes; tick them before you commit.
You believe me about niching. Now you're staring at a blank page trying to choose THE perfect niche before you start. You want to nail it on day one so you never have to change.
What's the smartest way to find your niche?
Most great businesses are shaped in the interplay between the founder's first guess and feedback from their first customers. You don't pick the perfect niche, you discover it. Take the early projects (yes, you'll get exploited a bit), run maybe a hundred reps, and watch where three things overlap: what you enjoy, who pays you well, and who's easiest to work with. That overlap is your niche. And being okay with early exploitation has a hidden upside: you get to choose who exploits you, which means you choose the network, market, and insider knowledge you walk away with. That's leverage, the way Naval means it.
You don't think your way into a niche. You act your way into one.
Why we resist going narrow
If niching is this powerful, why does almost nobody do it? Because narrowing feels like turning down money. Saying 'I only serve surgeons' means telling the dentist, the restaurant, and the gym owner no, to their face, while your bank balance is low and your nerves are high. It feels like shrinking. It's actually concentrating. A magnifying glass and the sun: same light, but focus it on one point and you start a fire. Spread it across the whole lawn and nothing even gets warm.
Saying no to most of the market is the price of being undeniable to a slice of it.
Niche first, then raise the price
Once you're the undeniable option for one customer, the value equation tilts hard in your favor. Value is the dream outcome times the perceived likelihood of getting there, divided by the time, money, and effort it costs them. As the specialist, your prospects believe you more (you've done it for people exactly like them), so the likelihood goes up and the perceived cost goes down. That belief is what lets you charge premium prices without flinching. The generalist negotiates. The specialist quotes.
Specialists quote. Generalists negotiate.
- Unfocused, I took 150 meetings to barely close 1 to 2 clients, and none stayed. Niched to surgeons, 10 meetings closed 5 clients. Same me, same service.
- The model: become the undeniable option for a specific customer with a specific service. Not graphic design, but infographics for surgeons.
- One inch wide, one mile deep. You don't need a new skill, just a smaller target you go absurdly deep on.
- Vet the niche on five checks: in pain, easy to reach, can pay, growing, and (most of all) low competition.
- You discover your niche by doing, not thinking. Take early projects, even exploitative ones, and let the data point to where enjoyment, good money, and easy clients overlap.
- Narrowing feels like saying no to money. It's actually focusing the sun into a fire. Niche first, then charge the premium a specialist commands.
Your turn
Take whatever you do, or want to do, and write it as a generic service: 'I do X.' Now niche it three different ways by bolting on a specific customer: 'X, but only for ____.' Make the blanks oddly specific (new fathers, dermatologists in Mumbai, Jamaican-food lovers, indie game studios). Run all three through the five checks: in pain, easy to reach, can pay, growing, low competition. Circle the one that scores highest. Then name three real places those people gather (a conference, a subreddit, a WhatsApp group, a clinic corridor) and book ONE conversation there this week. Not to sell. To learn. That's how a niche stops being a guess in your head and starts becoming a business.
X for everyone is a wish. X for ____ is a business.
Want the whole story, the long version? Read the deep-dive essay
Sharpened in Naval Ravikant’s lane. The framing and the miles are mine.