I chose not to choose a niche simply because I have so many things going on in my life and so many things that I’m interested in that I didn’t want to be tied to one thing.
I see people online where all they are known for is one thing, and you can tell by the look in their eyes that they are tired of doing what they do. For example, the Costco Guys can never go to Target or Walmart. The big ass buff dude who dances at restaurants probably has people walk out when he shows up somewhere to eat because people think he’s going to film content.
One thing that’s out of your control when you tie yourself to a company is what if they come out to be horribly racist or do something fucked up? If their money goes down or they get a bad image, you’re tied to it and have to cut it off and potentially lose your money.
Most of the content that I am seeing now is short form content too. I am not a short form content type of person. Posting every day for the almighty “algorithm” to keep pushing out my content seems horrible. Plus, I am not the type of person to inconvenience others to film content or do something in a public place.
I’m the type of person to experience something, take literally a couple of shitty pictures (I’ve seen a lot of cool shit, but you would never know that looking at my photos), walk around, enjoy the views, and then go about my day.
I’m also pretty big on living in the moment, which has kind of screwed me over at times. I’ve had some great nights partying with people that I don’t even have a picture of or have their social media. Looking back, I wish I had at least one picture to remember some of those nights, but at the time I wasn’t thinking about documenting everything. I was just enjoying where I was and who I was with.
With short form content, or content that’s more geared toward social media, you’ve got to record everything or take a bunch of pictures and then put them into some montage. I’m not trying to do all that. I’m not creative at all in that way.
I don’t even like taking pictures of myself or being in other people’s videos. You’d probably think I’m hideous based on that, but I think I’m probably just semi ugly.
I can’t lie and say I didn’t consider choosing a niche at some point. I evaluated my life and thought, “If I had to choose one, which one would it be?” That made me kind of tear apart each niche I had thought about, both in the short term and the long term.
Work
I don’t plan on being in my field past 5 to 10 years, and I wanted to build something long term. If this blog kicks off in 2 years and can sustain my lifestyle, then this is my job. So if I did it around being a “tech executive,” then it’s very short lived.
Five years from now I may not even be in tech. If I become a teacher, or this blog somehow pays the bills, then what? Now I’ve built an audience that only cares about Microsoft 365 or HIPAA compliance.
Tech Gadgets
I work in tech, but I focus more on the business side. I am not as technical as a lot of people in our organization, and I don’t plan to be. I focus on numbers and profit and loss. Even then, talking about the gross margin, service gross margin, MRR, etc. is not something I can do without even giving some numbers for context. If someone figured out who I was and where I worked, they could easily expose me in that way. I’m not trying to get fired when I’m just trying to build something on the side.
Travel
I love to travel, and I will travel a lot in my life and write about it, but it is not something that I want to do 24/7 and live on the road. I want to be there for my family, see my nephew and niece grow up, and see my friends and their kids grow up. Traveling for my life and my source of income will mean I’m gone for a long time, and in order to get new content, I’d likely have to be on the road.
I’ve never even taken a trip solely for the reason of making content. I like to travel light, so I don’t want to carry around hard drives, cameras, computers, etc. At least with this, I can do it off an iPad if I really wanted to.
Active Lifestyle
Working out, golf, running, etc. are all good ones to do, as they will positively affect my life whether this blog is successful or not because of the health benefits. I grew up playing a lot of sports, and I do enjoy playing them and watching them, but it’s not something I could keep up with daily if I were to write about professional sports news, trades, injuries, gear, etc.
And writing about working out when I am a little thick seems like I’m just being a hypocrite. I am not a fitness person and have more of a dad bod than a fitness bod. I work out every day, but I prefer to just keep that to myself, to be honest.
I’m not going to set up a tripod to record myself bench pressing. And I’m definitely not going to record my back muscles. I’m too hairy and not confident for that.
On top of that, I hate the short form content that I would need to create to promote this type of blog. I could not imagine recording myself running or being active on Strava. Don’t even get me started on everybody doing the Netflix documentary TikTok/Short/Reel.
-J