How Solopreneurs Operate: “Niching Down” with Wes Wheless

Corporate pro-turned-solo consultant and Develop My IP founder on the fine art of specialization

How niche can—and should—solopreneurship get in 2025?

That’s a question you might start to ask yourself as industries grow more segmented and technologies like AI continue to evolve. More than half of America’s nearly 30 million solopreneurs got started after 2020, and many now use AI to scale faster and dominate targeted markets.

Corporate pro-turned-solo consultant Wes Wheless of Develop My IP and I spoke in mid-July about the art of “niching down.”

We dove into questions that include: How can specialized expertise be best utilized for long-term success? When is it time to strategically pivot? We also explored the concept of partially niching for those who are doing well as generalists. This got us talking about occupational “A” and “B” sides—a nod to those who grew up with cassettes and vinyl records.

“I think the biggest paradox that new solo consultants need to internalize is that the more you specialize, the more valuable and in demand you become,” says Wes, who’s based in Seattle.

Watch our video or read the Q&A below for more on the importance of knowing how specialized to get as a soloist in 2025.

Wes helps new solo consultants bottle their secret sauce for viable businesses. He previously worked for Expedia Group, Boston Consulting Group, and other firms before starting his own shop in early 2023.

Niching is a topic that Wes delves into with clients, prospects, podcasters, and others.

He’s shared insights on targeted specialization strategies and solo consultant moats, the power of “intellectual headshots,” and the compounding benefits of narrowing your focus and codifying your IP. Wes also writes a daily email called 💡The Lightbulb, which offers a mix of consulting advice, actionable insights, and colorful real-world observations.

“The more you bucket yourself into something specific, the more people come your way with that exact problem,” he says.

Wes previously spoke to HSO in January about his unique career path from the corporate world to becoming a solopreneur who largely works with other solo pros.

Please welcome back Wes and join the conversation!

Great to see you again, Wes. For people who hear the term niche, but aren’t sure how it applies to being a solopreneur or solo consultant: How does it work and why is it so important?

I think of niching as another word for specialization. It’s really about finding your corner of the market. To do that, you need to answer two questions: Who do you help and how? Or flip it: What problem do you solve and for whom? It always comes down to the “who” and the “what.”

If you answer both of those questions broadly, like “I help any company with any marketing problem,” you’re a generalist. But when you get specific on both the who and the what, that moves you toward specialist territory. And the more specific you get, the easier it becomes to be known for what you do.

You’ve written and talked about five main benefits of niching down. Can you walk us through those?

Absolutely.

First: Concentrated pipeline. Generalists have to go broad—speak at every event, chase every kind of client. But if you specialize, you can focus your marketing and be selective. That saves time and increases efficiency.

Second: Market affinity. When you keep showing up in the same space, people get to know you—your name, your frameworks, your style. Then people start talking about you and then referring to people . That kind of momentum is hard to build when you’re scattered across too many audiences.

Third: Service refinement. When you serve the same type of client repeatedly, you start to streamline your services. You carve off  parts of your services that aren't high value or that are difficult to deliver. This leaves you with a really crisp service, really high ROI and high value for the client.

Fourth: Pricing power. So if you have a really dialed in service that over time you've gotten into something that's super high value, then that gives you the ability to ask for higher rates.

Fifth: Expertise loop. Every time you go through an iteration of attracting and serving a client, then that sets you up better for the next one. And that's something that is unique to a niche strategy as opposed to a generalist one.

What are the long-term benefits of sharpening one’s specialty niche from your experience? Feel free to talk about your work specifically as a consultant.

All those benefits I mentioned—they’re not one-time wins. They compound over time. When you commit to a niche, you might not see the payoff immediately, but it builds. One day, you realize: I’ve become a recognized expert in this space.

My own background has always been about helping others to extract and monetize their expertise. And I've done that in a lot of different ways—as a ghostwriter, course developer, content strategist. I worked with startups, executives, aspiring thought leaders. But a couple of years ago, I made an intentional decision to focus solely on solo consultants.

It felt like a more interesting and urgent problem to solve. But it wasn’t easy. I had to turn down clients, walk away from proposals. But it was done as a long-term decision to start really diving deep on one particular area. It started influencing everything—the kind of content I shared, the newsletter I launched specifically for solo consultants, the conversations I had.

My reputation deepened. My expertise sharpened. Opportunities started showing up that I didn’t have access to before. I understood the niche strategy intellectually and academically, but seeing it unfold in real life—that was the moment it all clicked. When you focus down, it really does come back to you.

So the clients you turned down were mostly corporate? And you basically pivoted more to working with individuals, right?

Yeah, most of the warm leads I was getting early on came from my tech network—usually B2B SaaS startups looking to turn their executives’ knowledge into content. That was a big part of my first year on my own.

Those client relationships were steady and then they asked me to stick around for the next project and the next project. And honestly, it felt good—those client relationships were steady, and they kept coming back with new projects. But the work started drifting further and further away from what I’m really good at. So that’s what prompted me to even think in the first place that I needed an intentional niche strategy.

Once I decided to focus on solo consultants, I began transitioning away from those corporate clients. I was getting some inbound requests for proposals. I referred some leads to other people. I started turning down proposals. But it was a long-term investment in market positioning.

Really interesting and also admirable because there’s a bit more risk in my mind. The smaller the client gets, the level of security goes down a bit.

Let me say that it was definitely a calculated decision. I explored a few different directions, talked to people about their willingness to pay, and ended up making my decision. With corporate clients, there's more red tape. Projects get delayed. Priorities shift.  I probably got knocked around on the schedule a lot, with no adjustment in scope or rate. There are also multiple decision makers, which drag out the sales cycle.

When I’m dealing with individuals or solopreneurs, it’s faster and more direct. However, it comes with pricing challenges. Many are pre-revenue, that’s why I structured my services in a sprint model. Someone in that position is more likely to hire me in a two week sprint as opposed to a three month engagement.

And that is what we cover in the niche finder: Who do you want to work with? What do you want the sales process to look like? What room do you want to be in? What conversations do you want to be having on a daily basis? Just all of that goes into this.

With the pre-revenue clients, what happens if it doesn’t pan out for them in a worst case? How do you manage that and how does that impact you and them?

I’m upfront with what is entailed in the sprint. If someone is just starting out, we don't jump to the IP builder. We begin with the niche finder, which is really structured reflection. It's about identifying your unique expertise and figuring out where you think that could fit in the market. That insight has value even if you decide to not go down the consulting route. Even if you decide to go back to corporate, you now have a better grasp on where your real value lies.

There is one level of protection that I certainly offer is that if we develop a niche hypothesis and test it, and something critical gets uncovered in the market that we didn’t anticipate, we can always regroup and rethink it. But the process gives people language for their skills,  often for the first time in their careers. It helps them translate a 10-20 year corporate career or experience they've picked up that's unique and potentially marketable as a solopreneur.

Why, broadly, are people reluctant to go niche?

There are a ton of reasons, but they mostly boil down to fear. The fear shows up in different ways. Some people are afraid of choosing the “wrong” niche,  that they’ll commit to a space that has no demand. That’s a fair concern, but it’s one you can test and mitigate through conversations, research, and experimentation.

Others fear boredom. Particularly folks that are just leaving corporate. They’ve just broken out of a corporate box, and the idea of narrowing down again feels like confinement. But what I’ve found by talking to my clients and other fellow consultants: is that the deeper you go into one specific problem, the more interesting it gets.

Even though I only work with solo consultants now, their domains vary widely. I get to learn something new from every client. That keeps me more engaged than I’ve ever been.

And finally, there’s fear of closing doors—the classic FOMO. New consultants often want to stay open to all kinds of work. They feel like saying no might cut off opportunities. But the paradox I try to get people to internalize is this: the more you specialize, the more valuable and in-demand you become. And I’ve seen it play out again and again.

Let’s talk about what happens when your niche becomes saturated. During the pandemic, there was a huge spike in life coaches and business coaches. What then?

That’s a great example. And the truth is, going niche actually helps you weather that kind of shift. Because all those compounding benefits we talked about—they start working in your favor the moment you commit.

If your space becomes crowded, your existing reputation, IP, methodology, service structure and clarity will help you stand out. But if it feels like even your specific corner is getting saturated, that’s your cue to niche down even further.

Let’s say you’re an executive coach for CEOs at SaaS companies. Over time, maybe you realize your best-fit clients are first-time founders. That’s a new subset. You double down again. And here’s the thing, as solopreneurs, we don’t need hundreds of clients. Most coaches I know are looking for maybe 20 to 30 clients total. Corporate consultants might need only five or six solid projects a year. That means there’s always room if you go deeper.

And that whole paradox holds: The more that you bucket yourself into something specific, the more people will be coming your way with that exact problem.

What’s your advice for generalists who are doing well—full pipeline, variety of work, wearing multiple hats? Can one partially niche?

I love the hedge. I had someone come with this exact question, a subscriber to the newsletter. He said, “I’m doing fine, but I’m still a generalist. Should I specialize?”

My take: If you have enough work, you’re probably niched enough—at least for now. Niching is a spectrum. Most people are already somewhere in the middle. Maybe they’re broad on who they serve, but narrow on what they offer. Or vice versa. If you love variety, keep some of it. But be intentional. Look back at the past year. Which clients or projects drained you? Which ones energized you? What would happen if you just stopped taking the low-fit work?

So here’s the tool I recommend: Create an A-side and a B-side. Your A-side is your niche—the work you’re building toward, the audience you want to grow, the offers you want to scale. Set your strategy and revenue goals around that.

Then carve out space—maybe 10 to 20% of your time—for the B-side. That’s the interesting one-off project, the surprising referral. That way, you still have room for the unexpected, but without losing focus. Because at the end of the day, we got into this to do work we enjoy. And if you structure things right, you can.

Any final thoughts you want to add for solopreneurs looking to niche down?

Well, I think the only thing to wrap this up is that choosing your niching or specialization strategy is just the first step.

If you really wanted to, you could make that decision overnight: “This is who I’m going to serve, and this is the problem I’m going to solve.” That’s the start of a specialization strategy. You then need to go and continue to march down that road and do the things that I’ve been mentioning:

Figure out your unique approach to solving that problem.

Document that into frameworks. You know, really insert yourself into this world. And that is what will start to really compound over time and start to have people respect you for the expert that you are.

Thanks again for rejoining us, Wes, and thanks everyone for tuning in!

Damian: It’s an illuminating time for solopreneurs around the world looking to best utilize their professional skills and expertise.

The independent business landscape has grown rapidly in recent years. In the U.S. 🇺🇸, 5.2 million small business applications were filed last year, on the heels of 2023’s record 5.5 million. More than 20 million new founder applications have been submitted since 2020—though one in five startups don’t survive past their first year.

On the bright side: The number of nonemployer firms earning between $1 million and $2.5 million doubled year over year for the first time in 2022, topping 100,000 soloists, per Elaine Pofeldt. These latest stats in America are a sign of how the future of work could become even more niche—especially amid heightened competition from a growing number of self-employed participants.

“Don’t let the surge of independent talent deter you,” Wes emphasizes. “Remember, your acquired lens on your domain is as unique as your fingerprint, and there’s an equally unique slice of the market that needs exactly what you can offer.”

This ends the first part of How Solopreneurs Operate! Thanks to everyone who participated, read, and watched our Q&As in the first half of 2025. More to follow from HSO in the fall!