The Internet is Tokyo

Niching down can feel scary - it’s easy to believe we need a big potential market.

But the internet is like Tokyo.

It’s such a big place that no matter how small our niche is, there are more than enough people to accommodate our business.

So says Derek Thompson, a senior editor at the Atlantic, in an interview in Masters in Business (linked to below).

Here’s an excerpt:

Interviewer: “What advice do you give to a recent college grad who comes up to you and says I’m interested in journalism and writing books?”

Derek Thompson: “…there is a paradox to scale, I think. People who want to be big sometimes think, “I have to immediately reach the largest possible audience.” But in a weird way, the best way to produce things that take off is to produce small things. To become a small expert. To become the best person on the internet at understanding the application of Medicaid to minority children, or something like that.

And the reason why I think this is true I call my Tokyo example. If you go to Tokyo, you’ll see there are all sorts of really, really strange shops. There’ll be a shop that’s only 1970’s vinyl and like, 1980’s whisky or something. And that doesn’t make any sense if it’s a shop in a Des Moines suburb, right? In a Des Moines suburb, to exist, you have to be Subway. You have to hit the mass-market immediately.

But in Tokyo, where there’s 30-40 million people within a train ride of a city, then your market is 40 million. And within that 40 million, sure, there are a couple thousand people who love 1970’s music and 1980’s whisky. The internet is Tokyo. The internet allows you to be niche at scale.

Niche at scale is something that I think young people should aspire to.”

Takeaways?

Don’t be afraid to niche down. The more you niche down, the easier it’ll be to be the leading expert in that niche.
The internet is a big place. There are bound to be more than enough people out there to build a viable business from your niche.

Here’s the podcast interview where Derek talks about this.

Like this post? Subscribe for more like it, and behind the scenes from my 7-figure bootstrapping journey: