Update: Still in the Midst of Niche Confusion

This blog is for myself to brainstorm on my difficulties with sticking to a single niche, and if it's ever useful to anyone else for something, then great.

I've produced no new content in the past 2 weeks, still thinking about how to improve on the quality of my content, with a clear focus on YouTube.

I'm considering opening any number of new YouTube channels, up to about 16. That's slightly ridiculous, but by explaining the reasons, maybe I can start making sense.

For each separate topic, I note that the associated YouTube channel can be either in French or in English, which effectively doubles the number of channels. There's the usual difficult trade-off to make between choosing the language: there is much less competition in French and the quality is much lower, so it is much more realistic to aim being first, but there is considerably less traffic.

Also, each topic is either worked upon by myself only, or with Lynn, with various consequences. If it's only by myself, then I can work at my own pace, and produce the content only in English.

If it's a niche with Lynn, it's teamwork and things are slowed down by having to wait for her availability and readiness. However, I can also work on my own to produce content without her within our common niches.

Now, let's list the main niches, with some pros and cons for pursuing them.

Niche 1: Creativity and Wellbeing

The main niche with Lynn is Creativity and Wellbeing. So far, it's a smorgasbord of topics, some of them to be "moved" (or rather created anew, because we don't want duplicate content!) to new channels, with this new list of topics staying in: self-coaching, mindfulness, image streaming, creativity techniques, breathing exercises, painting/writing, etc.

Pros: a) it's our main common project, Lynn is highly motivated. Cons: a) monetization is unclear; b) we must develop 2 channels, in English and French, since the material with Lynn will be created in French first, while much material is easier for me to produce in English first; c) the channels don't contain some of our favorite topics, that we ought to exclude because the topics are too specialized, see further below; d) it's a highly competitive niche, it's unclear how we could ever come first, at least in English; e) we're beginners in our niche, but that's true of all the niches, so I won't repeat it!

Niche 2: Piano Lessons

I'm encouraged by my piano teacher to begin to teach piano to beginner adult students. I might start in the next few months. In my previous blog, I mentioned I added a write up into blogs of my 72 piano lessons. I could develop that extensively, to make it a channel of intermediate level piano tutorials.

Pros: a) I have lots of material; b) I can develop it on my own, e.g. only in English; c) it'll help improve my piano playing. Cons: a) I reckon it's competitive, which suggests doing it in French instead.

Niche 3: Scientific Consulting

If I get admitted into an entrepreneur program for a year, in a few months, then I will be developing a service business, which will need a website and YouTube promotion. I'm not clear about what this channel would contain, which is also the problem with my entrepreneurial project: other than saying to potential clients that I am great at solving complex technological or scientific problems, doing scientific computer modeling, data analysis or statistics, and mentor their employees, I am not able to articulate a precise business niche, so it's good reason to be concerned about trying to make it as an entrepreneur.

Pros: a) I can develop it on my own; b) it'll be my duty to work at it; Cons: a) I don't feel like doing it (but I might be surprised)

Niches 4, 5 and 6: Acroyoga, Figure Skating and Dance

These are about hobbies I have with Lynn. Figure skating would require a 3rd person for filming, and perhaps also some professional video equipment for sports recordings. Acroyoga is a fastly growing sport, with good materials on YouTube, but room for more, and relatively easy to do. Figure skating is highly specialized, with very limited online resources. One angle for example is that the Skate Canada channel features only kids, while we could make materials for adult figure skaters, but that sounds relatively hard to do. We have much less about partner dances, so we can cross that one out to feel a sense of accomplishment at putting at least some boundaries!

Pros: a) we are motivated; b) it's straightforward by dubbing to produce both English and French versions; Cons: a) They are highly specialized topics with little commercialization potential

Niche 7: Travel Website

I have some very short videos from earlier trips, which in light of my new experience are nearly worthless. But we're going to Portugal soon, where we could take nice videos, perhaps. I'm not motivated, or competent about, in working on helping people with travel logistics. So after 5 posts, I do enjoy writing travel blogs, but I don't feel they are of much worth to others. Although I have tons of materials, my travel website is on hold.

Pros: a) Portugal trip coming soon; Cons: a) my old trip photos, although numerous, are not of good enough quality for a professional travel website.

Niche 8: Intelligent Toilets

I started on WA only only and only because I had found amazing electronic toilets on my recent trips to China and Japan, and I knew it was a fantastic idea for an affiliate marketing blog because it's a fast growing market of high ticket items. Unfortunately, after 7 blogs, I was sick as hell of writing about toilets, within 4-6 weeks of starting, and I could not resume the effort, despite still seeing it today as a great idea. I can see that producing YouTube videos on these toilets would be great for the website, but I could not find any near me for a demo.

Pros: a) great for affiliate marketing, should be done in English; Cons: a) can't make myself work on it.

Conclusion

As I expected, my brainstorming is inconclusive. I feel I need to pursue most of these niches and see where that will take me.