Why ‘The Riches Are in the Niches’ Is Bad Advice

11 Oct 2025 · 1 min

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In this commentary, Eric Siu challenges the popular entrepreneurial mantra that "the riches are in the niches." He argues that while starting in a niche can be a useful entry point, many ultra‑specific niches—such as best man speeches, bridesmaid speeches, bar mitzvah speeches, and funeral speeches—are too small to scale into a sizable business. Siu emphasizes that for entrepreneurs who aim to grow, the total addressable market (TAM) is a critical factor; a collection of tiny niches may still not generate enough revenue to become wealthy. He concedes that operating within a niche is acceptable if the goal is a non‑scaling, lifestyle business, but warns that relying on niche focus alone is insufficient for substantial wealth creation.

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The riches are in the niches. I've heard that advice too many times. I've never seen anyone get wealthy off of a niche. Yeah, maybe you start in one. Start and then you can expand. But some people just get into too many like small niches. Like someone tried selling me a business one time and they got pissed off that I didn't buy it. It was on best man speeches. And I'm like, too much of a niche. I don't know how you expand that out into a non-niche. You know, bridesmaid, I don't know what it's called on the other side. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with it. If you don't want to scale it, it's okay. But if you want to scale it, The total addressable market matters. Yes. And with some niches, people believe like, oh, I'll start with a niche and then yeah, I'll scale it out to be not in a niche, but some things like a best man speech, that's too hard to get out of a niche. Even if you do the bridesmaids version, what are you going to do next? So bar mitzvah speeches, um, you know, like, uh, funeral speeches, funeral speeches, you can start picking them, but they're all niches and they're too small. When you add it all up, it still doesn't make enough money.