My final layoff was exactly three years ago.

That milestone coinciding with writing the 'Finding Your Niche’ section of my book this week has prompted a lot of reflection of my solo path so far.

Yesterday, I mentioned a series of pivots in my audience and services, some more extreme than others, so I decided to map them out.

My services/niche evolved in the following steps:

• First gig: Hourly BizOps work for an edtech startup
• Ghostwriter | courses for SaaS execs
• ‘Signature Service Intensive’ for solo consultants
• General business coaching for solo consultants
• NicheFinder sprint for solo consultants
• Intellectual Headshots sprint for solo consultants

In writing, that might sound like a linear path, but look at it visually:

I plotted each step as a bubble on two simple axes:

• Zone of competence vs. zone of genius (see framework)
• “Hands work” vs. “Brain work” (see framework)

And the bubble is sized based on gross revenue 🫣

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Zoomed-out, it looks a lot like the Strategyzer scribble from a couple weeks ago, no?

But we already knew this road is all about experimentation and triangulation.

So here are the other things I see when I look at my niche evolution map:

1. Revenue followed my genius zone — whenever I tried something a bit too far off my mark, the market gave me feedback.
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2. Narrower services brought higher demand — this shouldn’t surprise me or you, but fun to see it pan out
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3. “Brain work” isn’t always the answer — in my case, I’ve found my genius zone includes some sleeves-rolled-up creation work
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4. Trying one thing at a time gave each a fair shot — and a fast, clear read on whether it was working

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Curious what your map looks like?

Here’s mine in Miro - make a duplicate board and plot yours for yourself.

If it looks like a scribble…you might just be on the right track.

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💡

-Wes