Niche is the New Mass

The Economics of Depth: Loyalty Over Reach

It’s tempting to equate niche with small. But that’s a mistake. Niche doesn’t mean narrow in impact — it means sharp in focus.

And sharpness pays dividends.

Micro-influencers (those with fewer than 50,000 followers) now deliver 60% higher engagement than their macro counterparts, according to Influencer Marketing Hub. Why? Because they speak from within, not above. Their followers see them not as brand billboards, but as trusted peers. When these influencers recommend a product, it’s not an ad — it’s a referral. That’s loyalty, and it’s earned.

In the business world, loyalty doesn’t just feel good — it shows up in hard numbers. Returning customers spend 67% more than new ones. High-trust users are more likely to advocate, forgive mistakes, and co-create the future of the brand. And where there’s trust, there’s defensibility. When your brand means something to someone, it becomes harder to imitate —and easier to sustain.

Strava understood this. Rather than try to be the next Fitbit or Garmin Connect, it went deep with serious cyclists and runners — the kind who wake up at 4 a.m., live by segments, and obsess over split times. The platform gave them what they craved: social proof, performance tracking, and a shared sense of effort. Today, it’s grown into a multi-sport ecosystem with millions of users — not in spite of its niche roots, but because of them.

When you design for the right few, the many will follow.

From Specific to Scalable: How Niche Drives Growth

There’s a persistent myth in business that niche means limited. That if you don’t build for the mass market, you’re capping your upside. But the evidence suggests otherwise: specificity scales — when done right.

Notion and Figma didn’t try to be “productivity tools for everyone.” They started with highly specific, highly demanding user groups: designers, developers, writers. By focusing on collaborative needs, elegant UX, and community-centered features, they won the hearts of early adopters — who then brought them into their teams, companies, and circles.

Substack wasn’t trying to replace every CMS or newsletter service. It built for long form thinkers, culture writers, and audience-funded creators. It baked sovereignty and intimacy into the product — and became synonymous with a new model for writing and independent journalism.

This is how niche becomes mass: by building deep relevance, not wide generalization. When the first 1,000 fans care deeply — really deeply — they don’t just buy. They amplify. They critique. They help evolve the product. They tell others who care about the same thing. It’s the same principle that powered Glossier, Vivo barefoot, and HOKA’s early rise: start small, go deep, and let passion compound.

Or as Kevin Kelly famously put it: you only need 1,000 true fans.