Hey, Aaron here! Welcome to this bi-monthly startup newsletter. In each write-up, I tackle questions about building products, financial planning, growth, and raising capital! Today we dive into -

Education:

When to start raising funding for your startup

Opinion: Founders often fail because they won't pick a niche

You’re trying to sell to everyone and reaching no one. Focus and win.

Most founders think their biggest problem is finding customers. It’s not. Their real problem is focus. They build “Uber for X,” “AI for everyone,” or “the all-in-one tool for everything.” But that’s a fast way to burn time, money, and energy — without getting results.

You don’t grow by trying to serve everyone. You grow by owning a small corner of the market, fast. Vague offers don’t convert. General ideas don’t stand out. Especially in the early days, you need sharp focus:

One customer. One feature. One clear value.

You don’t need a massive audience to make millions. And you don’t need a perfect product. Think about how many 7/10 products you use every day. They work. They’re good enough. Why can’t your product also be good enough? You just need a small group of people who really want what you’re selling.

In the Business Scale Engine methodology, we call this customer-solution fit — a clear match between what you offer and who it’s for. So before you try 10 different ways to get customers, create an offer that works for one niche customer segment and focus on building momentum.

Why Niche? Speed and Efficiency

1. Lower Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): You can target acquisition channels with sniper-like precision

2. Shorter sales cycles: You’re speaking their language and can optimize for how this customer type converts

3. Higher retention: Your product actually solves their core problem because you’re able to focus on one audience

The Path to Scale Is Through Specialization

Specialization isn’t just a marketing move — it’s a finance and operations strategy. Focused businesses run leaner, move faster, and generate cleaner data that leads to better decisions.

The fastest path to millions per year (or month) isn’t by going wide — it’s by going deep. When you narrow your focus and truly understand your customer, you sell more effectively and position yourself to expand with confidence. It’s hard to confidently start painting your next masterpiece if the first one’s still unfinished.

I try to come to an understanding of my business using this framework:

“My business is valuable because it delivers [specific value] to [specific customer], which creates [specific result or targeted outcome].”

When I can say this clearly, confidently, and back it with real customer data — that’s when I know it’s time to scale.

My Takeaways / Next Steps (if I’m a first-time founder)

Instead of building a product for everyone, pick a customer segment where:

• The problem is painful.

• The budget is real.

• The need is frequent / recurring (once a year is fine if it hurts bad enough).

• Then tailor your product and your acquisition strategy to them only.

Here’s the playbook:

1. Choose a niche where the problem is felt often, not just loudly.

2. Interview the hell out of them. Get their words. Get their pain. Steal their language.

3. Build the offer first. Not the product. Sell it, then deliver.

4. Ignore other audiences until you hit traction. Specialization is the hack to speed.

Bottom line:

Want to win? Stop being everything to everyone and bite the bullet to niche down - your product, your customer, your value proposition.

Build something 100 people love instead of something 10,000 people kind of like. Then scale with confidence on the back of momentum.

That’s how you build a real business.

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Written By Aaron @(un)conventional Team