How Do I Know If There’s A Market For My Idea?

There are more than 8 billion people on planet earth. 

Someone recently told me that they doubt if there is a market for their idea that they would love to turn into a membership. It’s what they consider a niched topic but they have serious doubts, whether many people would care, let alone pay for it. 

I love these challenges. 

Now, fifteen years ago, I probably would have agreed with him. I even went so far as saying that it’s really difficult to get paid to do work that you love. I was one of the lucky ones, I thought, because it did require so much pain and- even though I loved my work as a sports photographer- the pay was atrocious. But I still considered myself one of the lucky ones. 

Fast forward a few decades. What a difference time makes. What’s possible now, you ask?

• Sports fans who make a great living through a Patreon membership who talk about their favorite teams. 

• Employees who have honed a skillset that they developed at a job and turned it into teaching and a community helping others in that field. 

• Hobbyists who have taken their most obscure interests and turned them into paid memberships and communities. 

• Entrepreneurs who have a passion for a very specific, narrow slice of business and create full-time recurring revenue by building a tribe within that niche. 

• Authors who stopped focusing on selling books and instead used that same book to share information, expand their content and build a community around the book. 

• Podcasters who put endless hours into their content creation and had the lightbulb moment to monetize their podcast into a membership that gave listeners bonuses, community and VIP access. 

This list, it turns out, is endless. And if we interviewed them all, I would bet that very few of them were convinced that they had an extremely profitable idea upon conception. Quite often, it starts with simply a passion to connect, create or share. It was something they would have done anyway. But if they could actually make a living- or even create an additional income stream- that would be amazing. 

But none of them would recommend not starting. Every day the world becomes more niched down. How else do you explain Training Beta- a membership with in-depth education for rock climbers? What about Neiru- a Japanese nail and art school community? And I recently learned about not one- not two- but three online memberships with a sole focus on handstands. One of them is now a seven-figure membership. 

If I wasn’t already incredibly excited about this membership space, these examples would make me jacked up with possibility and hope. 

Even with that excitement, so many still doubt if people would pay for their idea. They will use the default that there is already tons of free content and groups around their topic. Why would anyone pay for it? 

The example this person gave was in a very specific niche that had a few Facebook groups that she was a part of and participated in. I asked her a question. 

“Would you personally pay for a group that was on the same topic, but it got rid of the negative people chirping, the people who are pitching and it got rid of the riff raff that comes with a free group?

Would that be valuable? And would it be more valuable if it gave access to training and connection to experienced people in that niche? 

“I’ll pay for that right now!” she said. 

“That’s how you know people will pay for what you are thinking about.”

Sometimes, all we need is a different perspective. The future is brighter than the world would have you believe, my friend. 

Have an AMAZING week!

Vincent