“Write about artificial intelligence! It’s trending.”
“No, focus on personal development. Everyone loves that.”
“Maybe parenting? You’re a parent after all.”
Every time I sat down to write, the same paralysis would hit. I didn’t lack topics. I just had too many.
Simply asking AI didn’t help.
“Write about productivity for tech professionals!” Cool. Just another voice in an overcrowded space.
I needed something better than random suggestions. I needed a system.
Until you truly know that you’ve picked the right niche — one that you love and fulfils a market demand — you’ll keep wondering if the grass is greener in another niche.
Why? Because we’re humans. We second-guess everything.
Every online advice I came across said the same thing: “Just pick something and start writing!”
Right. Like that thought never crossed my mind.
I desperately searched for a framework, but couldn’t find one.
And so, I built one. A framework that combines:
My unique life experiences
My current interests and engagement
Real market opportunities
Today, I’m sharing this exact framework with you.
By the end of this guide, you’ll have:
A clear understanding of your strongest potential writing areas
A systematic way to evaluate different niches
3 validated niche recommendations that play to your strengths
No more guesswork. No more scattered approaches.
Let’s begin.
Overview
In order to be thorough and make a calculated decision (one we can stick to), we’ll:
List down our experiences, activities, and passions
Rate each one on five parameters: Experience, Consistency, Passion, Outlier, Market Trends
Calculate a cumulative score against each activity/passion
Find 25 unique combinations with the help of AI
Evaluating each niche on five parameters: Usability, Stability, Scalability, Stickiness, and Profitability
Find the top 3 with the help of AI
This might look like a detailed process (it is!). But each step builds on the previous one.
I’ve created a worksheet that makes this process seamless.
👉 Click ‘File > Make a copy’ to create your own version.
The worksheet will guide you through each step, calculate your scores, and help identify your strongest opportunities.
Ready? Let’s begin with Step 1.
Step 1: List Down Your Activities/Passions
Open the worksheet and think about your life experiences in these four areas:
Professional Experience
Specialized skills you’ve developed through experience (marketing, project management, ghostwriting)
Problems you’ve solved at work (automated a marketing funnel)
Topics where colleagues seek your advice (persuasive writing)
Personal Interests
Hobbies you pursue (reading nonfiction, strength training, photography)
Topics you read about (Harry Potter, cryptocurrency trading)
Life Situations
Current roles (motherhood, caring for elderly parents, long distance relationship)
Life transitions (moving countries, switching careers)
Educational Background
Formal degrees (Computer Science degree, Psychology major)
Certifications (Project Management, Artificial Intelligence)
List everything under the ‘Activity/Passion’ column.
Don’t filter anything out.
Even if you’re a beginner at anything, you can teach other beginners.
Step 2: Rate Your Activities
Now rate each activity on five parameters:
Experience: How long have you been doing this? Even if you do something only once in a while, mention it.
Consistency (Last 6 months): How frequently have you been doing this over the past 6 months? If you’ve been doing something frequently for the past 6 months, you’ll probably be able to do it in the long term.
Passion and Interest Level: How deeply do you love doing this? Do you lose track of time? Would you do this even if you had a million dollars?
Outlier among peers: Are you the authority on this topic among the people you know? Do they come to you for suggestion regarding this?
Market Trends: Is there an interest in this topic? We’ll use Google Trends to figure this out.
For parameters 1-4, you’ll find the rating guide below the main table.
For example, if you have 6 years of experience, you rate yourself 3 under experience.
For the fifth parameter (Google Trends), go to Google Trends, type in the name of the activity, and click ‘Explore’:
The next screen will show you a graph of recent interest in the topic.
Quick Tip: If you do not find exact match for a topic, try searching for some variations.
By default, the graph shows the trend in your country for the past 1 day.
Change them to see the worldwide trend for the past 90 days. Take the trend score and feed it in the spreadsheet.
After you feed all the scores against the acitivities, the sheet will calculate a cumulative (weighted) score against each.
Why different importances to different parameters?
Passion (30%): Without genuine interest, you’ll burn out. The most important factor.
Consistency (20%): If you’ve not been able to do it consistently over the last 6 months, you can’t be sure whether you truly love doing this.
Google Trends (20%): Ensures demand
Experience (15%): Prior experience is helpful, but not mandatory. You can build experience over time.
Outlier Status (15%): With sufficient time and consistency, you’ll become an outlier.
Note: You can try changing the weights, but make sure they together add up to 100%.
Step 3: Discover Unique Combinations Using AI
Now, we’ll upload the screenshot of our spreadsheet and ask AI to combine these activities and come up with 25 potential niches.
Note: Ensure the AI you’re working with supports image inputs. Example: ChatGPT 4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini 2.0
Use this prompt:
You are Justin Welsh, the expert online businessperson and copywriter. You run multiple content businesses and understand the content writing industry thoroughly.
You are my mentor. You are helping me find a profitable writing niche.
Here's how we will brainstorm a writing niche:
I will list down the activities/hobbies I pursue and rate them on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest) on 5 parameters. These parameters have variable weights.
Here are the parameters and the associated weights:
1. Experience (How long have I been doing this?) - 15%
2. Consistency (How frequently am I doing this over the past 6 months) - 20%
3. Passion and Interest Level (How deeply do I love doing this?) - 30%
4. Outlier among peers? (Am I the authority on this topic among my friends and colleagues?) - 15%
5. Google Trends (What is the Google Trends score for this activity) - 20%
The ratings provided against these parameters will be used to arrive at a final weighted score against each activity.
Based on the final weighted scores and the activities, your task is to combine the activities or use them individually to arrive at 25 potential niches. Here's how you'll combine the activities:
- combine the highest scoring and compatible activities
- combine the highest scoring activity with a compatible activity with a high degree of passion
- combine the highest scoring activity with a derivative of another high scoring activity
- use an activity on its own
For all the combinations, make sure it makes business sense.
I will upload the data in image format with the activities, scores in the 5 parameters, and the weighted score.
Before you proceed to the niches, reproduce the table as seen in the image. Once I confirm the table is correct, proceed to generate the niches.
Are you ready?Once the model says it’s ready, take a screenshot of only the portion with the activities and the scores and upload:
It will first reproduce the table. Check to see and rectify any errors.
After that, it will create a list of 25 potential niches combining multiple activities or using them individually.
Step 4: Evaluate Long Term Viability
Now that we have the 25 potential niches, we’ll ask AI to evaluate each of them against the following 5 parameters to ensure that it remains viable in the long-term:
Usability: Does the niche fulfill a practical need?
Stability: Does the niche have some stability over time, or is it a fad?
Scalability: Can it be duplicated with consistency? Or will it need to be constantly reinvented?
Stickiness: Can the niche become a habit or a trend? Can a community be formed around it?
Profitability: Does the niche have strong potential revenue opportunity?
In the same chat session, use this prompt:
For each of the above 25 niches, analyze them through the following parameters, and assign a score from 1-5, 5 being the highest:
1. Usability (Does the niche fulfill a practical need?)
2. Stability (Does the niche have some stability over time, or is it a fad?)
3. Scalability (Can it be duplicated with consistency? Will it need to be constantly reinvented?)
4. Stickiness (Can the niche become a habit or a trend? Can a community be formed around it?)
5. Profitability (Does the niche have strong potential revenue opportunity?)
Create a table with the niches and the respective scores.This will create a nice table with the scores on the above 5 parameters. Next, let’s find out the top 3 niches:
Cool, now suggest the top 3 niches (the ones with the highest scores in the niche analysis table)Boom!
The model will produce your top 3 niche recommendations:
By the way, this newsletter is based on suggestion #1.
When AI recommended “AI applications for content creators,” it perfectly aligned with:
My passion for demystifying complex topics
My unique combination of AI knowledge and writing experience
A growing need for clear, practical AI guidance
The market validation was clear:
Rising AI tool adoption among writers
Lack of structured, writer-focused AI education
Growing community of writers seeking AI guidance
Powerful!
Try This Now
Set aside 1 hour of focused time
Follow each step with the provided prompts
Score at least 5 different activities from your life
Generate and evaluate 3 potential niche combinations
Share your top niche idea in the comments. I’d love to help refine it
Once you’ve found out your niche, let’s work on differentiating your writing business so you become the obvious choice for your target reader.
Want personalized help implementing AI in your writing process?
I offer 90-minute sessions where we build your custom AI content system together.
The Google worksheet is in view-only mode. How do I acquire it to edit it? I'm not tech-savvy. You put a lot of work into this. Thank you. :)
This is amazing Tuhin! Thank you for sharing this! I will put some time into this and try it out.