I found my niche by solving my own pains. Think about something thats a pain in your life, then think about if it could be solved with a simple app, would you pay for the solution you are thinking about? would others? chances are people out there also have that issue and might pay.

do a little research, build something and get feedback, you'll pry find your niche going through that simple process

what were you doing to drive traffic to your survey app?

nothing. :) It was just luckily timed with a few events, appealed to a particular demographic and took off. I tried a few others, but, between finding topics that had decent affiliate payment options and a few duds, I started writing the game based on that survey and lost interest. As movies in that genre are released frequently, I think it is repeatable.

interesting. My idea isnt much of a game, but I could see implementing a gaming type of system with in, which might help it go viral.

Thanks in advance!

and thank you in advance to anyone who responds!

I learned a great deal at RITs Industrial Design program. Now that i've graduated I feel like I could design/build almost anything. RISD is known as being the mecca of design and I got in, but personally I wanted a school that had sporting events and other things to do, RISDs very "artsy". You can't go wrong with either school

I'm not buying it..the post lacks any real evidence. I've outsourced plenty and have found some really talented coders. Outsourcing has helped me, a non technical person, make shit happen!

Outsourcing is a great way to build a MVP and prove an idea in my opinion, but to each his own I guess.

Pure hustle..lots of cold calls and meetings. We also took advantage of our personal network since we had worked with in our niche for years. Once we made them into cheerleaders for our product we convinced them to invite people from their network.

Why get a business coach when you can get a mentor? The mentor relationship is far more valuable in my opinion, if they take you on they genuinely want to help, where as the relationship with a biz coach could make you appear nothing more then a dollar sign and a pay check to them.

Isn't it that a mentor will tell you how to shoot the goal, but you could use a coach to decide which goal to shoot?:)

hey jason, thanks for the response. Do you think this still applies even if I'm not looking to grow this into a huge network? and instead just want to set up a private invite only type? I'd hope to focus on quality in this network, right now there really aren't any players in the niche I'm in.

There's really no room for a private, invite-only type network -- at least not one that would make enough money to be worth your time.

One key you need to understand about the display biz now -- advertisers aren't as focused on buying sites anymore. Instead, they think of it as buying "audiences." Buying from a couple exchanges will give an advertiser reach to 95+% of the web. Add in some unique data with the built in targeting of the exchanges, and you can make both very broad and very very granular buys.

There are actually players in your "niche", you just can't see them because they are way too big. The large buying platforms are capable of targeting users (audiences) on a very granular level.

The only real model that works now is:

A) create unique tech (dynamic creatives a la Like.com) or gather a unique data set (preferably do both)

B) charge a premium for use of your unique tech / data while buying on the exchange

With any other approach you either won't make much money (so big players not interested) or won't find clients / leverage (big players too ingrained already and will crush you).

ad networks thrive on volume because of the margins involved, so it's difficult to succeed without locking in large players, especially because high volume sites are probably already leveraging existing networks.

I'm definitely trying to learn as much as I can about this before jumping into it, but I have made some great connections takes to my existing business thats within the niche.