September 27, 2024

Another RE Considering niching down?

Longtime list member, colleague, and fellow D&D adventurer Kieren MacMillan replied to my recent niching down message to share his experience of the benefits (shared with permission, lightly edited for clarity):

Hey there, JS!

As you know, niching down isn’t just by market — it can also be by service/role.

At the beginning of my career in IT, I ended up niching down almost immediately and almost completely by accident:

I had built up general skills as a developer of desktop databases (a niche within the larger “IT” world), and a particular expertise working with the FileMaker Pro database (a niche within the “desktop database” world).

Early on, the community/industry determined that my skill set was well-suited for large client systems/installations (a niche within the “FileMaker Pro database” world), and so I spent much of my early career working with large FMP clients.

About seven years ago, I finally identified that my true “superpowers” (such as they are) primarily reveal themselves in the initial stages of a project (i.e., needs analysis, high-level schema/structural and UI design, and acting as a liaison between the client and the technical/development team) and the final stages of a project (i.e., code and process optimization, rollout, and user training).

So I niched down almost completely to just those services/roles and leave the middle stages (code and UI development, testing, documentation, etc.) to others.

As a result:

– I have fewer projects on the go at any given time

– I’m always working in my Zone of Genius

– my effective hourly rate has skyrocketed

– everyone is happier (especially my clients!)

Cheers,

Kieren.

Thanks for sharing, KMac!

Yours,

—J