Shining Under The Sun – How to Stand Out When Starting Out

Review the full workshop on YouTube.

The hardest part of starting out

You enter a field like development, marketing, or writing, and within weeks the math hits you. There are thousands of people doing exactly what you do. Same tools. Same platforms. Same pitches.

The ones who seem to break through early usually have a network or years of experience behind them. You have neither. So now what?

You niche down.

This gets said a lot, almost to the point where it loses meaning. But there’s a reason it keeps getting repeated. It works.

The Chris Do lesson

About a year and a half ago, I was on a LinkedIn Live call with Chris Do, a designer known for teaching freelancing, negotiation, and sales. A Pakistani girl got on the call and, instead of asking about skills or strategy, told him she couldn’t earn good money because she was based in Pakistan.

Chris asked her one question. Do people in Pakistan buy iPhones?

She said yes.

He pointed out that Apple doesn’t lower its prices for Pakistan. People still pay. The product justifies the price.

Then he asked what she did. She said “branding.” He pushed. Branding is massive. Brand strategy? Visual identity? Guidelines? Naming? She didn’t have an answer.

That’s the gap. Not location. Not currency. Clarity.

Two truths about providing value

No matter what you do, you compete on one of two things.

You either provide the same value for a lower price. Or you provide more value for the same price.

That’s it. Everything else is decoration. If someone sells a razor for 100 rupees, you either sell two for the same amount, or sell a better one at the same price. Every competitive move you make falls into one of those two buckets.

What niching down actually looks like

Take a developer. You start broad: “I build websites.” That puts you in a pool with tens of thousands of people.

Now narrow. You build web apps. In React. For telehealth companies. Suddenly you understand the specific pain points: scheduling systems, payment integration, patient data compliance, medical SEO. Your portfolio speaks directly to the people who need you. Your messaging gets sharper. You stop competing with every developer on Upwork.

Same thing with a marketer. “I do marketing” means nothing. “I write landing page copy for SaaS companies focused on high-conversion value propositions” means everything. You know your client. Your client recognizes themselves in your pitch.

Red ocean, blue ocean

This connects to a well-known strategic concept. A red ocean is where everyone is fighting over the same clients in the same space. Blood in the water. A blue ocean is where you’ve carved out enough specificity that you’re not really competing with anyone anymore.

When you’re starting out, you can’t survive the red ocean. You don’t have the reputation, the portfolio, or the referrals to win those fights. The blue ocean is where you build your foundation.

The elevator pitch framework is useful here. If you can’t explain what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters in under 30 seconds, your niche isn’t clear enough yet.

But I don’t want to limit myself

This is the most common pushback. “If I niche down, won’t I miss out on other work?”

No. Your niche is your entry point, not your ceiling.

If you’re a telehealth web app developer and someone comes to you with an e-commerce project through a referral, you can still take it. But your public positioning, your portfolio, your outreach, all of that targets telehealth. That’s how you get found. That’s how you get hired the first time.

Once you have clients and referrals flowing, you can expand. But you need the door to open first, and a narrow door is easier to walk through than a wide, crowded one.

This isn’t a one-time exercise

Finding your niche is not a weekend task you check off. It’s a continuous process. You try something, learn from it, adjust, and try again.

My own path started with a broad mix of product management, project management, and marketing consultancy. Over time, I narrowed it to working with early-stage startup founders on product management. That focus made it immediately clear to potential clients what I do and whether I’m the right fit.

Your niche will evolve as you take on projects, learn what you enjoy, and discover where you deliver the most value. The key is to start narrow, not wide. You can always expand later. You can’t easily recover from being invisible.

Start specific. Ship work that proves it. Let the niche do the selling for you.

With or without my help – I wish you the best.

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