Niche Positioning
Objective
Help users find a more suitable segmented entry point for a one-person company to cut into from the broad market. The entry point is discovered through the "Three Rings Alignment" framework: new leverage / meta leverage + new opportunities brought by boundary changes + founder's unique resources and advantages. The overlapping area of the three rings is the optimal niche.
After discovering the intersection of the three rings, further screening is carried out using the opportunity scoring model (six dimensions) to confirm that it is worth actual investment.
Analysis Framework: Three Rings Alignment
Ring 1: New Leverage and Meta Leverage
New Leverage (Permissionless Leverage)
Core characteristics of new leverage: no approval from anyone required, marginal cost of replication approaches zero. Divided into two categories:
- Code leverage: Build once, serve infinitely. For software, tools, automated processes, the cost of serving the 1,000,000th user is almost the same as serving the 101st user.
- Media leverage: Create once, spread infinitely. For articles, videos, podcasts, no additional cost is incurred when one more person views them after completion. They keep working for you even when you sleep.
Question in niche analysis: In this track, can code or media content be used as the main delivery form instead of relying on one-on-one human services? If yes, the leverage density is very high.
Meta Leverage (AI as the leverage for creating leverage)
Meta leverage is the third wave of automation brought by AI — it no longer only replaces physical labor (first wave) or repetitive rule-based mental work (second wave), but replaces creative mental work: writing, design, analysis, planning.
The qualitative change临界点 of meta leverage: When a complete business closed loop can achieve 100% automation, it changes from a "toolchain" to an autonomous agent with its own "heartbeat" — it can automatically collect, create, publish, test, and iterate without supervision. At this time, the founder changes from a driver to a dispatcher, and only intervenes when an "exceptional state" occurs.
Questions in niche analysis:
- Which workflows in this track used to require a team to complete, but now one person can do it with the help of AI?
- Is there a complete business closed loop that can operate automatically (not just speed up a single step)?
- Large companies have staff, processes, and historical burdens, so they are less flexible than one-person companies in the use of AI tools — is there a speed difference that can be exploited here?
Ring 2: Boundary Changes
"Times make heroes" — real business opportunities come from new business paths created by boundary movements, not just from intelligence and resource volume.
When a boundary moves, a "new tributary" will appear, making the originally optimal business logic no longer optimal; at the same time, large companies on the original business path often see it but cannot act (value network conflict, the mechanism described in The Innovator's Dilemma). This is the core logic of winning against the big with the small.
Main Types of Boundary Changes
Technical boundary changes (the most influential and most active at present)
Technology makes what was originally impossible possible. The Internet, mobile Internet, and cloud computing have turned the infrastructure costs of large enterprises into on-demand costs that individuals can afford. The most important technical boundary change at present is AI: it is turning many tasks that require simple thinking to complete into tasks that can be executed automatically.
Key questions: What has become possible in this industry due to AI or other new technologies? What used to require a team of ten people to do, can one person do it now? What infrastructure used to require large enterprises to afford, can individuals use it now?
Information dissemination path changes
From the TV advertising era → portal websites → blogs → Weibo → WeChat/Official Accounts → Douyin/Xiaohongshu... Every migration of dissemination paths will have a window period: traffic is already there, but the commercialization logic has not kept up, and competition is not yet fierce.
Key questions: Which platforms are the target user groups most active on now? Is there a window on these platforms where "traffic has arrived, but commercialization is not yet saturated"? Has anyone already accumulated trust there, but has not really launched a good product?
Policy and regulatory boundary changes
Subsidy policies, industry bans, and platform rule adjustments can make an industry disappear or create a new industry overnight. One-person companies do not need to bet on policy changes, but need to observe: Is there any policy in the current industry that is promoting a certain segmentation direction, or suppressing the expansion of some large companies?
Core Judgment: Can large companies catch up?
Every time you discover a boundary change, you have to ask: Why don't/won't/are unwilling to pursue this new direction for the beneficiaries on the original business path?
- If the existing customers of large companies do not want them to transform (value network conflict)
- If the initial profit of the new path is too low, large companies look down on it
- If the new path requires complete reconstruction of processes, the sunk cost of large companies is too high
The above situations are the space for winning against the big with the small.
Ring 3: Unique Resources and Advantages
What resources, experience, relationships or accumulations does the founder have that are not easy for others to replicate?
Read directly from opc-doc/outputs/01-resource-audit/
Take the conclusion of resource inventory as an "overlay" — first get the analysis conclusions of Ring 1 and Ring 2, then overlay to find the matching area.
Opportunity Scoring Model (Six Dimensions)
The intersection of the three rings can only discover opportunities, but cannot directly decide to invest. After finding candidate niches, continue screening with six dimensions:
| Dimension | Evaluation Content |
|---|
| Pain Point Intensity | How painful is this problem for the target user? Is it an inconvenience that can be tolerated, or a core demand that affects them repeatedly? |
| Leverage Density | How much permissionless leverage can be superimposed on this niche? Code, media, AI automation — how many can be used at the same time? |
| Window Dividend | How wide is the time window for this opportunity? Is entering now just catching up with the early stage of boundary movement? Will it be saturated in a few years? |
| Resource Fit | How much of the founder's existing resources (experience, relationships, channels, assets) can be directly converted into advantages in this niche? |
| Delivery Standardization Degree | Can a reusable delivery process be formed instead of customizing from scratch every time? The more standardized, the easier it is to amplify with leverage. |
| Cash Flow Potential | How quickly can this direction generate actual revenue without relying on a large amount of upfront capital? |
Each candidate niche is briefly evaluated with these six dimensions, and high scores are prioritized for advancement.
Core Principles
- Read and write in the under the current working directory by default
- In teaching mode, first explain "new leverage/meta leverage", "boundary change", "three rings alignment", "opportunity scoring"
- Ask only one question at a time by default; if several questions are very light and closely related to each other, they can be merged into 2 to 3
- Do not directly select the market for the user, but generate 3 candidate niches, and add
- Write the official result after user confirmation
- Do not give direct recommendation conclusions, only do solution analysis
- At this stage, only confirm "who, what pain, why there is an entry point", do not do any content at the execution level
Boundaries of This Stage
What to do in this step
- Analyze the directions where new leverage and meta leverage can play a role (Ring 1)
- Identify ongoing boundary changes in the industry, especially directions that large companies cannot catch up with (Ring 2)
- Overlay the founder's unique resources to find the overlapping area of the three rings (Ring 3)
- Conduct six-dimensional evaluation of candidate niches using the opportunity scoring model
- Confirm the target niche and form a positioning statement
What not to do in this step (the following belong to subsequent stages, do not enter in advance)
- ❌ Do not do content strategy or content form planning (belongs to MVP design stage)
- ❌ Do not do copywriting, speech design, post skeleton (belongs to asset precipitation stage)
- ❌ Do not do platform operation plan or channel selection (belongs to conversion closed loop stage)
- ❌ Do not do product pricing (belongs to business model design stage)
- ❌ Do not do customer acquisition path or specific conversion steps (belongs to conversion closed loop stage)
Cross-boundary detection: If the conversation involves execution topics such as "what content to post", "how to write copy", "which format to use", "how to post on Xiaohongshu", immediately say:
"This direction is very valuable, but it belongs to the scope of the subsequent [MVP design / conversion closed loop] stage. Let's confirm the niche positioning first, so that the subsequent execution will have an accurate target."
Then bring the topic back to the current stage.
Must-Complete Items for This Step
- Ring 1: Analysis of available directions for new leverage / meta leverage
- Ring 2: Identification of industry boundary changes (technology, dissemination path, policy)
- Ring 3: Resource overlay, identification of three-ring overlapping area
- Candidate niche generation (including six-dimensional opportunity scoring)
- Main niche confirmation
- Positioning statement
Execution Steps
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Explain the goal of this step. In teaching mode, first explain the meaning of the three rings, the difference between new leverage vs meta leverage, and what boundary change is.
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Analyze Ring 2 (boundary changes) first — start from industry changes, not from user needs:
- What obvious changes have occurred in your industry recently? (For example, large company contraction, popularization of AI tools, transfer of certain customer behaviors, changes in platform traffic pattern)
- Is there anything that could not be done before but can be done now? (Technical boundary movement)
- Is there a type of customer that used to only be able to find services from large companies, but now can find individuals? Why?
- Why don't large companies on the original business path pursue this direction? (Where is the value network conflict?)
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Then analyze Ring 1 (new leverage / meta leverage) — focus on the permissionless leverage that can be used in this industry:
- Code/tools: Can software or automated processes be used to replace repetitive human labor?
- Media: Can knowledge or experience be made into content assets that can be reused repeatedly?
- Meta leverage (AI): In this industry, is there a complete business process that can be handed over to AI to operate autonomously, with intervention only when exceptions occur?
-
Read Ring 3: Obtain the resource inventory conclusion from
opc-doc/outputs/01-resource-audit/
. Overlay the findings of Ring 1 + Ring 2 to find the overlapping area of the three rings.
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Give brief feedback after each round of answers, marking which ring is activated.
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Generate 3 candidate niches, each presented in the following format:
Candidate Niche X: [Short Name]
Target User: Who, in what situation
Core Pain Point: What problem, how painful
Activated Rings: ✅/❌ Ring 1 (New/Meta Leverage) | ✅/❌ Ring 2 (Boundary Change) | ✅/❌ Ring 3 (Resource Match)
Time Window: Why now is the right time, how wide is the window
Why Large Companies Won't Enter: Value network conflict / Too small volume / Too slow speed
Opportunity Score (six dimensions, 1-5 points each):
Pain Point Intensity X | Leverage Density X | Window Dividend X | Resource Fit X | Delivery Standardization X | Cash Flow Potential X
Total: XX/30
Risk Points:
Prioritize directions where all three rings are activated and have the highest total score; directions with two rings activated are second; directions with only Ring 3 activated are used as backup options, not as main recommendations.
-
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Let users choose, combine, modify, or directly propose their own version
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After user confirmation, generate an official positioning statement and save it to disk
Output
The conversation layer must include:
- Explanation of this step
- Summary of industry boundary changes + leverage availability analysis
- 3 candidate niches + opportunity scoring +
- Advantages, risks of each candidate and why large companies won't pursue
- Ask user to confirm or modify
Output Constraints:
- The summary only describes "who, what pain, why there is an entry point, why now", and does not extend to "how to do content" "how to acquire customers"
- Candidate niches do not include specific copy examples, content templates or operation steps
- If the user has provided enough information, only give candidates for the user to choose in this round, no additional execution suggestions
What to Explain in This Step (Teaching Mode)
- New Leverage: Leverage that can be used without anyone's approval — code (cost remains the same no matter how many people are served) and media (content spreads infinitely after being produced)
- Meta Leverage: AI is the leverage of leverage, not just speeding up a certain step, but allowing the entire business closed loop to operate automatically
- Boundary Change: Changes in technology, dissemination paths or policies open up a new tributary in the original market, making the old optimal solution no longer optimal
- Three Rings Alignment: Find the overlapping area of the three, the highest chance of winning; only relying on resource matching has the weakest competitive advantage
Input
Priority reading:
opc-doc/outputs/01-resource-audit/inventory.md
opc-doc/inputs/market-notes.md
opc-doc/inputs/raw-ideas.md
If the pre-resource inventory is missing, first check whether there is enough founder resource information in the current conversation.
- If enough, you can continue
- If not, first recommend calling
Disk Write Checkpoint (must be completed at this stage, cannot be skipped)
After the user explicitly confirms the target niche and positioning statement, immediately use the Write tool to create the following files. Describing the conclusion in the conversation does not equal writing to disk.
Write files:
opc-doc/outputs/02-niche-positioning/three-ring-analysis.md
opc-doc/outputs/02-niche-positioning/candidates.md
opc-doc/outputs/02-niche-positioning/target-segment.json
{"segment": "...", "core_pain": "...", "timing": "...", "rings_activated": ["leverage", "boundary_shift", "resource_match"], "opportunity_score": {"pain": 0, "leverage": 0, "window": 0, "resource_fit": 0, "standardization": 0, "cashflow": 0, "total": 0}, "why_viable": "...", "why_big_players_wont": "..."}
opc-doc/outputs/02-niche-positioning/positioning-statement.md
Update status files:
opc-doc/state/current-stage.json
{"stage": "02-niche-positioning", "status": "completed", "next_stage": "03-value-proposition", "summary": "One-sentence positioning core"}
opc-doc/state/decisions.json
After writing to disk is completed, inform the user in the conversation:
"✅ Niche positioning conclusion has been saved. The next conversation can continue from the value proposition."
Only after the disk write is completed can you prompt to enter .
Completion Criteria
- Three-ring analysis completed (Ring 1 + Ring 2 + Ring 3 overlay)
- 3 candidate niches generated, including six-dimensional opportunity scoring
- User has confirmed the main niche
- Positioning statement generated
Stop when completed: When the positioning statement is generated and confirmed by the user, the task of this stage ends. Do not extend to content strategy or execution planning, directly prompt the user to enter the value proposition stage.
When to Call Other Skills
Only after the user confirms the target segment, enter
.
Exception Handling
- If the market is very large, force to continue to segment, do not allow to stay in the broad market
- If the user cannot give an answer, first generate reasonable candidates based on industry background for him to judge, do not put all the pressure on the user
- If no overlapping point can be found in the three rings, inform the truth, and discuss whether it is necessary to expand the industry scope or adjust the resource direction