Quotes for Entrepreneurs curated in October 2026 from a variety of sources on a theme of creating a niche or entering a market and establishing a niche.
Quotes for Entrepreneurs
Curated In October 2026
The theme for this month is “creating a niche or entering a market and establishing a niche.”
“You must push your awareness to the utmost limit without losing your inner quiet, you must be able to see with the eyes of others from within their personality without losing your own.”
Dag Hammarskjold
Originally curated in December 2013 as a restatement of
“The other day I was forced by a journalist to try to formulate my views on the main requirements of somebody who wishes to contribute to the development of peace and reason. I found no better formulation than this: ‘He must push his awareness to the utmost limit without losing his inner quiet, he must be able to see with the eyes of others from within their personality without losing his own.”
Dag Hammarskjold in a 1958 letter to Swedish author, Eyvind Johnson
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Two tweets from Dolly Parton I found to be good advice for entrepreneurs about finding a niche:
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
Dolly Parton in 2015 Tweet“I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.
Dolly Parton in 2010 Tweet
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“Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.”
Sam Walton in “Made in America”
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“Look for a niche where your know-how and relationships will provide significant competitive advantage. More than energy and enthusiasm, you need distinctive competence (the ability to deliver results) and both knowledge of and affinity for the customers you will serve.”
Sean Murphy in an interview with Etienne Garbugli on “The Three Kinds of Working Capital Your Startup Needs to Succeed“ (March 9, 2021)
Originally curated in March 2021. This interview predates the explosion in AI apps and was offered as general advice for attacking B2B markets including vertical SaaS apps, specialized hardware, professional services, etc.
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“Combined arms hits the enemy with two or more arms simultaneously in such a manner that the actions he must take to defend himself from one make him more vulnerable to another. In contrast, supporting arms is hitting the enemy with two or more arms in sequence, or if simultaneously, then in such combination that the actions the enemy must take to defend himself from one also defends himself from the other(s).”
The trick to carving out a niche or segmenting a market is to find a combination of two or three features that are very hard for a competitor to match with surrendering a larger market to other competitors. Startups must “live small” before they “grow big.”
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“The forensic science world is not an easy one for an outsider to crack. How do you find and then talk with a DNA analyst buried deep within the DNA section of a lab? How do you get an evidence technician or a forensic anthropologist or a medical examiner to open up about what really goes on? How do you know who the players are? How do you know you’ve got reliable sources? How do you know you’re asking the right questions rather than woefully ignorant questions?
I work with the belief that, for a project like this, the whole world opens up if you can find the right lever. What the outsider needs, I learned in college anthropology, is a “key informant,” a reliable source within a group who puts you in contact with other reliable sources. I was lucky enough to have several key informants going into this project. I talk about these people in the acknowledgments. As I interviewed, one reliable expert would lead me to the next. Experts kept telling me, “Forensics is a pretty small world. We all know each other.”
It’s one thing for the outsider to get forensic experts to talk. It’s another challenge for the outsider to understand what they’re saying. What saved me in interviews was that forensic experts are well-versed in translating for jurors when testifying in court. And I’ve taken a professional vow to always admit ignorance, rather than pass it along to the reader.”
Connie Fletcher in “Every contact leaves a trace”
Also published as Crime scene: inside the world of real CSI and Real Crime Scene investigation. It’s also available at the Internet Archive. I like this quote because it documents a process that works for exploring a niche market.
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“The smallest viable audience is a stepping-stone, not a compromise.
Seth Godin in The smallest viable audience
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“The genius of niches is they are too small for large competitors, allowing a nimble entrepreneur the breathing room to focus on an underserved audience. Once you’ve succeeded in that niche, you can leverage your success to establish credibility for your business to move into larger markets.”
Rob Walling in “Start Small, Stay Small“
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“Successful bootstrappers know that just because they can make a product doesn’t mean they should. […] Given the choice between building a thriving, profitable business with a niche and a really boring product and putting your life savings into an intensely competitive business where you’re likely to fail but the product is cool, the experienced bootstrapper will pick the former every time.”
Seth Godin in The Bootstrapper’s Bible (PDF)
AI has exacerbated the tension between “I can build this product” and “I can build a profitable business around this product.” I have blogged about Godin’s Bootstrapper’s Bible and related “Bootstrappers Manifest0” several times:
- Seth Godin’s “Bootstrapper’s Manifesto”
- Seth Godin: This is Strategy, Make Better Plans
- Book Club: Seth Godin’s Bootstrappers Manifesto
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“Aim to work on something that no one has a word for. Spend your energies where we don’t have a name for what you are doing, where it takes a while to explain to your mother what it is you do. When you are ahead of language, that means you are in a spot where it is more likely you are working on things that only you can do. It also means you won’t have much competition.”
Kevin Kelly in an interview with Noah Smith (Mar-7-2023)
This advice may be good but the challenge is if you cannot explain to prospects what you do, at least in the form of a quid pro quo–“you give me this, you get that”–you may find yourself “out, standing in your field.”
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“I had wonderings and hopes but they were vague and foggy. I couldn’t see myself filling some definite niche in what is called a career. I might become a newspaper reporter, a foreign correspondent, an author of books, an advertising copywriter–or an actor, a Lyceum lecturer, an agitator, an orator–maybe a Congressman, or an independent drifter defiant of all respectable conformists. This was all misty.
I knew I liked writing, that whatever happened, I would do a lot of fooling around with pens, pencils, and paper. I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good.”
Carl Sandburg in “Ever the winds of chance” (in chapter 1: “Classrooms and Hose Carts”)
It’s hard to find your niche. Sandburg was fortunate that he was able to persevere and chart his own course. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: in 1919 his volume of poetry Cornhuskers, in 1940 for his biography of Abraham Lincoln, and in 1951 for his Complete poems.
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“The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne in “The House of Seven Gables” (1851) Gutenberg
Here is a longer excerpt with more context, with original quote bolded. Holgrave is asking Phoebe to marry him. She is worried her desire for stability will conflict with his desire for accomplishment fueled by risk-taking. Although many spouses of entrepreneurs are more cautious, based on what I have heard at Bootstrappers Breakfasts, it’s normally a robust combination when both parties commit to open communication. See “Treat Your Spouse as an Investor” for suggestions on this.
“How can you love a simple girl like me?” asked Phoebe, compelled by his earnestness to speak. “You have many, many thoughts, with which I should try in vain to sympathize. And I,—I, too,—I have tendencies with which you would sympathize as little. That is less matter. But I have not scope enough to make you happy.”
“You are my only possibility of happiness!” answered Holgrave. “I have no faith in it, except as you bestow it on me!”
“And then—I am afraid!” continued Phoebe, shrinking towards Holgrave, even while she told him so frankly the doubts with which he affected her. “You will lead me out of my own quiet path. You will make me strive to follow you where it is pathless. I cannot do so. It is not my nature. I shall sink down and perish!”
“Ah, Phoebe!” exclaimed Holgrave, with almost a sigh, and a smile that was burdened with thought.
“It will be far otherwise than as you forebode. The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. I have a presentiment that, hereafter, it will be my lot to set out trees, to make fences,—perhaps, even, in due time, to build a house for another generation,—in a word, to conform myself to laws and the peaceful practice of society. Your poise will be more powerful than any oscillating tendency of mine.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne in “The House of Seven Gables” (1851) Gutenberg
I like the phrase “follow you where it is pathless.” Entrepreneurs must depart from known paths at some point to find new niches. This insight by Hawthorne, “The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease,” reminds of an observation by Thomas Edison in his notebooks a century later:
“Restlessness is discontent — and discontent is the first necessity of progress.”
Thomas Edison in “The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison” (1948)
I have used this quote three times, omitting the next line (“Show me a thoroughly satisfied man — and I will show you a failure.”) because I find it so disagreeable. I used this in “Restlessness & Discontent, Gumption & Sisu” and curated it in May 2016 and December 2021.
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“The right time to approach a technical problem is when it’s barely possible to solve it; when it’s hard, filled with unknowns, but not impossible. The best case is when you find something that’s unlikely or even seems irrelevant to other people, but you see value in it and put in the hard work to make it happen. Hard and non-obvious (at first) is where value lies. Obvious and easy is where low-margin crowds are. look for something worthwhile that is barely possible. Don’t confuse prior difficulty with present value or the ability to make something with a reason for making it.”
Sam Schillace in “If It’s Easy It’s Not Worth Much“
I like this approach for finding a niche. The key phrase is “look for something worthwhile that is barely possible.” Build on your own expertise and experience, even if the problem seems irrelevant to others. To verify “worthwhile,” you should have strong evidence, or at least a strong intuition, that solving it will allow you to deliver value to a niche market. There are a couple of caveats:
- Not every solution to a hard problem provides value to your customer or your employer: you should try to connect the dots to the new value the solution will enable. This may mean lower cost, faster cycle time, new revenue, or lower risk or higher process reliability.
- It’s wonderful when you unlock new possibilities, but you should have at least one practice or process that will be improved or obsoleted by what you have accomplished. If you tell people, “Now you can do X.” They may tell you they have no interest in X.
The sense of confronting new possibilities that have been heretofore “off the map” has been seeping into my intuition about AI in the last few months as I talk to more practitioners, so I found this paragraph from the same essay mirroring my thoughts:
The hard part in all of this, which has made me feel unsettled for some time and is now more broadly impacting people, is that we have to find something novel and hard at the new frontier, when the frontier is constantly moving. It’s disorienting. And for many folks, unpleasant—not everyone wants to be in a constant mode of invention and creation. Many folks just want to have a set of instructions to follow. I understand the temptation and comfort of that. I am disoriented too. For those of us who have made our living doing hard, scarce things, the answer, while perhaps uncomfortable, is clear: find some new, hard, scarce things to do.
Sam Schillace in “If It’s Easy It’s Not Worth Much“
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“Choose your corner, pick away at it carefully, intensely and to the best of your ability and that way you might change the world.”
Charles Eames
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“Don’t attack a walled city.”
Gordon Bell’s guideline from “High Tech Ventures“
I used this in “Rock Paper Scissors” and “Be Wary of Attacking a Walled City.”
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In “Crossing the Chasm,” Geoffrey Moore defines a market by four characteristics:
- a set of actual or potential customers
- for a given set of products or services
- who have a common set of needs or wants, and
- who reference each other when making a buy decision.
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“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced — Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it.”
John Keats in a “Journal Letter” to George and Georgiana Keats (February 14-May 3, 1819)
This is what makes entrepreneurship so hard (along with many other callings), you must have empathy for your customer’s situation and needs. It’s also the case that words like pivot, lost sale, and shutdown feel very different in real life than as words on a page.
Why Journal Letter: Keats’ brother George and sister-in-law Georgiana had emigrated to Louisville, Kentucky, making postage for a letter from England expensive, and delivery slow and unreliable. He would collect many letters to them in a what was essentially a small diary and then entrust it for hand delivery to someone traveling to America. This is part of an entry for Friday March 19, 1819.
This quote reminds me of two I curated in March 2019
“What cannot be taught always teaches the greatest lesson.”
Drew Byrne
My start on a list of things that need to be experienced to be understood: earthquake, business shutdown, riding a bike, death of a close friend, overcoming a fear (or feeling the fear and doing it anyway), etc.. This quote reminded me of an earlier observation I made about the ability to integrate multiple simultaneous activities–it’s very hard to teach in a narrative form or as a diagram, it often has to be experienced:
“At a deeper level the ability to have a serious conversation looks like a lot like riding a bike, you have to integrate several simultaneous activities into a mindful whole. Sustaining a serious conversation requires not only self-awareness and the ability to manage your own transient emotional reactions to their statements or reactions, but empathy for nuances of the other person’s responses (verbal and non-verbal).”
Sean Murphy in “Conversations With Prospects: Practice, Review, Share Notes, Ask for Feedback“
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“Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. Every blunder behind us is giving a cheer for us, and only for those who were willing to fail are the dangers and splendors of life. To be be a good loser is to learn how to win.”
Carl Sandburg in “Ever the winds of chance” (1953) Chapter 15 “The Chicago Plunge”
The book draws it’s title from a quote by George Ade: “We are all wisps, and the winds of chance blow in many directions.”
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“Like the young trees in the wintertime, I’ll learn how to bend.”
Carole King and Toni Stern in It’s Going To Take Some Time This Time
Finding your niche is rarely a single, clean, smooth effort; it’s more like halting steps in a dark maze whose dead ends require frequent backtracking. Many entrepreneur success stories leave out the confusion that gave way to slowly dawning comprehension. In part because it’s painful to remember confusion and difficult to explain it in hindsight. Also because, over time, the successful steps and final results are more memorable.
Prospects observe you the way that a dog watches television, straining to experience familiar sights and sounds.
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“I know that most men — not only those considered clever, but even those who are very clever and capable of understanding most difficult scientific, mathematical, or philosophic, problems — can seldom discern even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as obliges them to admit the falsity of conclusions they have formed, perhaps with much difficulty — conclusions of which they are proud, which they have taught to others, and on which they have built their lives.”
Leo Tolstoy “What is Art?” (1932) Chapter 14: “Truths fatal to preconceived views not readily recognized” (Aylmer Maude translation)
I think entrepreneurs must often abandon not only common wisdom but also aspects of their own hard-won perspective to recognize a new niche. Exploiting a niche will often involve inverting an established rule of thumb, typically by wasting what was formerly scarce or expensive but is now suddenly plentiful and cheap.
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“Throwing away ideas too soon is like opening a package of flower seeds and throwing them away because they’re not pretty.”
Arthur VanGundy
Exploring niches requires patience and vision.
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“The most dangerous person on your team isn’t the loudest critic or the lowest performer. It’s the one who has quietly decided they don’t belong here, started to believe it, and hasn’t left yet.”
Mike Fisher
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“Success in life is a matter not so much of talent as of concentration and perseverance.”
Charles William Wendte
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“Innovation involves anticipation. It is having a broad base of knowledge on your subject and an ability to see where the end game is headed. Use all your knowledge to get there first. Set the trend and make the competition counter you.”
Bill Walsh (quoted in “Football Done Right” by Michael Lombardi0)
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“While a problem is being solved, a large, heterogeneous set of ideas, theories, and criteria—with many variants of each—compete for survival. Theories continually turn over as they are altered or replaced. All are subjected to variation and selection, and the criteria used for that selection are themselves subject to variation and selection. The process resembles biological evolution: a problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or species tested for viability in that niche. Variants of theories, like mutations, arise continually; less successful ones become extinct as more successful ones take over. “Success” means surviving repeated selective pressure—criticism—whose criteria depend both on the characteristics of the niche and on the other ideas already present. The new world-view implicit in a successful theory, like the distinctive features of a species that occupies a niche, is an emergent property of the problem or niche. In short, obtaining solutions is inherently complex.”
David Deutsch in “The Fabric of Reality“
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“Who is strong? He that can conquer his bad habits.”
Benjamin Franklin
We are now a third of the way into Q4 so it’s time to make a final push for the year and start to look back at 2026 for lessons for 2027. We have two questions we will explore at Bootstrappers Breakfasts in November and December in addition to whatever you would like to put on the table
- What are three mistakes you keep making that you will reduce or eliminate in Q4? These could be bad habits, mistaken assumptions you keep making, or traps you keep falling into. As entrepreneurs, we continue to plan new initiatives, projects, habits, etc.. but we also need to organize the abandonment of things that are holding us back or no longer effective.
- What have you learned in 2026 that you will apply in 2027? This may experiments that worked or successes you plan to build on. Or things to stop doing.