AP 0829: As a Teenager, How Do I Create a Niche Product for a Wider Audience?

AskPat 829 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey. What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here. Welcome to Episode 829 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week. We have a great question today from Muj. Before we get to his question I do want to thank today's sponsor which is, Design Crowd.

It's a website that helps businesses crowdsource custom graphics from over a half million designers worldwide. If you're stuck on ideas in terms of developing different things, from logos to websites or business cards, you can connect with the creative minds from around the world there at DesignCrowd. Actually if you go to designcrowd.com/askpat, you can download a free guide to crowdsourcing and also get a $100 off your next design when you enter the promo code “Ask Pat.” Again that's designcrowd.com/askpat.

All right. Now here's today's question from Muj.

Muj: Hey Pat. It's Muj from @mujlife on Instagram. That's @-M-U-J-L-I-F-E. I also have a new site called paperfree.life. It's a new top-level domain. I hope you check it out.

First off, all of your audio content, it's great. I love hearing it. It's awesome. As a teenager I find your podcast to be highly entertaining and at the same time educational. I've learned a lot of things over the past two years or so I've been hearing your voice.

I have a question about, as a teenager, how do you create a niche product? As a teenager you can't really advertise to all the groups because you're not as old to them. They can't take you as seriously, in my opinion. Actually, in my experience. At the same time, all of the underage or all of the teenager stuff has already been taken and people are on it as soon as it happens. It's tough to do anything in the teenager space in my opinion, based on everything I've seen. How would you create a niche from the perspective of a teenager? If you were a teenager today, then how would you do it in that sense?

The older people, they can't take you seriously. All the underage stuff that happens as quickly, super quick. How would you do it?

Pat Flynn: Muj, thank so much for your question. Man, I'm so jealous that you are already thinking about these things at the teenager age. If I were a teenager and getting started I'd be so thrilled with the fact that I've figured this out earlier than a lot of other people who are waiting until much later in life to figure out that this is the direction they want to go in. As you might remember for me and my story, it wasn't until I was laid-off when I was in my mid- to late twenties that I finally realized that there were all these opportunities out there. Now with technology and the things that are around us and available to us, all these resources can help us succeed. So great job.

In terms of your question, I get where you're coming from in terms of why you're asking this. You're a teenager, you don't have a lot of experience in life. You might be trying to teach something and then the older generations can be like, “Why would I listen to you?” I believe that that's the wrong thinking. It is the wrong thinking. You're coming from a place of scarcity in this mindset. Even with your second question related to all the teenage-related stuff is taken. No, that's not the way to approach it.

There are things coming and happening every single day and you have your own experiences. You have your own knowledge that is going to be useful to people. Think about this, you're not always going to be a teenager. If you target teenagers you're eventually going to grow out of that so that's the one thing that worries me a lot about people who specify the age group of the people that they're trying to target. You want to target a group of people who have a specific problem. That's what you want to do.

In terms of your experience versus the experience of others, that's something you'll have to prove. It doesn't matter what age you are. I know people who are in their mid-forties who are building businesses in areas that they shouldn't be building businesses in. It doesn't matter the age, they don't have the experience to actually succeed with what it is they're talking about. Yet.

The same thing goes for you. I would focus on things that are of interest to you and owning it. Be that person who, when people of the older generation see you do those things, say, “Wow. Muj is a genius. He is starting at such an early age.” They're going to listen to you not because you are the same age but because you are younger. Use that to your advantage right now. Start early. Yes, things might not happen over night. Yes, it's going to take some time to build authority and proof. With some people they're just not going to listen to you yet. Some will. And they will spread the word for you once your prove yourself. Once you share your solutions. Whatever niche you get into, whatever solutions you end up creating.

There's going to be people who will want to follow you and learn from you no matter what your age is. So I would approach it with that sort of mindset. This is all mindset stuff Muj, like in everybody. Especially the younger ones out there listening right now. It all starts in the head. The way that you approach something matters in terms of how it actually happens.

I talk about this with my son all the time. If he goes into a new thing that he's doing, problem or a task or a challenge, and he doesn't think he can do it, then he's not going to do it. I always tell him, “Whether you think you can or you can't you're right.” He's seven so he's a little bit confused about that statement, but for those of you listening I hope you know what that means. Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right.

Muj if you don't think that you can build authority, if you don't think that you can actually have people appreciate you, and follow you, and learn from you because of your age, then guess what, they're not going to. If you believe you can then you're giving yourself that chance. You're going to do the hard work required to get people to actually pay attention. That's what this is all about. Getting attention. And guess what, when teenagers do awesome things they get attention. I would roll with that. That's what I would do.

In terms of the market that you want to get into, teen stuff happens all the time. Again I wouldn't worry about teen stuff. Like what problems are you solving? What problems are coming out now that you can potentially provide a solution for? Hopefully you want to create something where you become known for it. You want to be that trusted advisor. Maybe people who are following you are teenagers right now, but they're going to grow-up with you. If you are there with them now and you build that relationship with them sooner, they're going to be more likely to become fans down the road.

Muj I hope this helps answer your question or at least gives you some thoughts and inspiration about this. I want to thank you again for having your question featured here on the show and for sending it in. I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt. We'll get that to you as soon as possible.

For those of you listening, if you would like to get your question featured here on the show as well, head on over to askpat.com. You can ask right there on that page. I select from the lot of questions very single week as I record these. Then I also answer questions live on a live broadcast done on Facebook. If you go to facebook.com/smartpassiveincome every Friday at 1:30 p.m. pacific, I conduct a one hour Q and A session with everybody there. I answer a bunch of questions. You don't get a shirt if I answer your question there but I do giveaway stuff at the end. Hopefully I'll see you there. Again that's facebook.com/smartpassiveincome.

Guys, I appreciate you. Thank you for listening in today. Thank you for your time. Here's a quote to finish off the day for you. This is from James R. Cook, that quote is, “You're never giving, nor can you ever give enough service.” True that.

All right guys, take care. I'll see you the next episode of AskPat. Bye.