I love this idea and I think you’ll absolutely crush it.
I ran a successful online business for 10 years, with it becoming my sole source of income. I say that because, in my humble opinion, Noncents’ post had some utterly excellent pointers. And Will’s words about finding your own unique voice and niche were excellent, as well.
I will try to offer a few tidbits on niche which I hope might be of some value.
One, you don’t always need the exact niche at the start. I stumbled on my own niche accidentally. A former co-worker suggested I write a dating advice book, which I laughed at and dismissed.
When my brother died, I decided to write the book as a distraction from grief. I posted the book on a poorly designed and ugly web site. And to my shock, it started selling. As it did, I started getting repeat requests for aid in overcoming social anxiety and shyness.
I ended up re-writing the book by incorporating tools for overcoming shyness and building social confidence. And that was when the selling took off. It was also when weird media outlets like The Wall Street Journal, MTV, Playboy, etc started contacting me for interviews and appearances on radio on TV.
My point is, at some juncture, I think you need to dive in. Audio, video, SEO, and all other tech skills can be ironed out later. Even the niche might come from audience feedback, as it did for me.
There are, however, ways to do niche research up front for ideas. I’ll toss a few out.
Something as simple as going to popular hockey vids on YouTube and reading comments. In said comments, are there specific things you notice that people like, dislike, want more or less of? You could ask that same question in user reviews of hockey books on Amazon.
What do you yourself find enthralling or lacking in existing hockey articles, podcasts, and blogs? Heck, I imagine you could pose that question to some of us inside this NYR area.
You can also research what people are searching for. Google is obviously the largest search platform. But YouTube, which of course is owned by Google, is the largest video search platform. Both have keyword research tools which can provide a wealth of data on what hockey fans are searching for.
Most social platforms with paid advertising have similar user search data designed to help advertisers best target their marketing.
I can keep rambling ideas but that seems a good start point and I worry adding more will become diluted and enter into the domain of over-researching.
What I can say is, if there is a competitive, large, and already successful market, it is generally a great thing. It tends to mean there are almost certainly untapped voids that can be filled. It is simply a matter of identifying them through research, or by doing the thing until a path starts to reveal itself, or doing both these things simultaneously.
But having read your posts, combined with the knowledge base and connections to hockey you described in your initial post, I fully believe you will flourish at this.
Best of success!
