Scan time: 2-3 minutes / Read time: 3-5 minutes
Howdy rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
Anika writes a Sunday newsletter about regional Indian home cooking.
Each issue maps a dish from one village most cookbooks skip.
To her, the real India lives in village kitchens, not restaurant menus.
Her readers, mostly Americans, want that home-style cooking — not the five dishes restaurants recycle.
⛳️ Problem:
Six months into her weekly Sunday issue, her open rate dropped from 52% to 38%.
So two friends suggested broadening to Indian-fusion or general Asian home cooking.
A bigger umbrella, they said, would grow the list faster.
By Friday Anika has three drafts of a new "pan-Asian weeknights" positioning.
Her struggle: whether to scrap a niche that was just starting to work.
🔥 The recipe
➡️ The genius-idiot rollercoaster
Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush run Write With AI, a newsletter on AI writing.
Dickie grew past 300,000 followers writing online in a few years.
They argue every solo entrepreneur rides the same emotional loop.
First comes the grind, with no proof it's working.
Then a few early wins, and you feel like a genius.
Then a quiet week hits, and the voice whispers "I'm an idiot."
That low whisper tempts you to scrap your niche and broaden.
Their argument: both the high and the low are lying to you.
The skill isn't picking a bigger niche.
It's coaching yourself through the dip — hanging on instead of quitting.
Picture a writer six issues in.
One good week, she feels unstoppable. One quiet week, she's sure it's doomed.
When the doubt hits, she looks back at why she started this niche.
The demand she found before launching was real — so she stays grounded and keeps going.
🚗 The steps
🎢 Step 1 — Name where you are on the rollercoaster.
Write down whether this week you feel like a genius or an idiot.
Don't argue with the feeling. Just label it out loud.
Anika wrote, "This week I feel like an idiot."
The dip had her half-convinced the regional angle was too small.
🧾 Step 2 — Separate the facts from the feelings.
List what actually happened this week. Numbers, events, words people said.
Then list how you feel about it. Keep the two columns apart.
Anika's facts: opens dipped from 52% to 38% over six weeks.
Two issues had landed in promotions tabs for new Gmail users.
Reply volume per send had actually doubled in the same period.
Her feeling: "The regional niche is too small to grow."
The feeling and the facts didn't match.
🧭 Step 3 — Pick the one repeatable next move.
Ask: what's repeatable, what's avoidable, what's random?
Then choose one small action you can take this week.
Anika emailed her top 100 most-engaged subscribers with one question.
"Which region do you want me to cover next?"
61 wrote back within 48 hours. Most asked for South Indian recipes — dosas, sambars, and the curries restaurants don't serve.
She didn't broaden. She doubled down on South Indian and Bengali home cooking.
Open rate climbed back to 49% within four issues.
The prompt below will act as your no-BS coach when the dip hits.
You just tell it how you feel this week and what happened.
🧸 Facts + feelings + one next move = a niche you don't quit on.
🏄♀️ The prompt
Save this prompt as a Skill or add to Project in your favorite AI tool — build once, use often.
Update your input values in the prompt or just run as is, your AI sidekick will use the example values and will give output.
CONTEXT:
- (use what's available, fall back to the inline values)
- If my Voice Profile exists, write in that voice. Otherwise, write in a clear, warm, no-jargon voice — first-person, plain words, no startup-speak.
- If my ICP / Audience doc exists, target that reader. Otherwise, use the audience below.
Inputs:
This week I feel like (pick one): GENIUS or IDIOT
{e.g. IDIOT}
What actually happened this week (the events that triggered the feeling — just the facts, no story yet):
{e.g. open rate dipped from 52% to 38% over six weeks, two issues hit promotions tabs, reply volume actually doubled}
My niche and what I've built so far (so the coach knows what's at stake):
{e.g. a Sunday newsletter on regional Indian home cooking, 6 months in, 4,000 subscribers}
For Audience: {e.g. American home cooks who want real regional Indian dishes, not the restaurant version}
For Outcome: {e.g. a clear-eyed read on whether to broaden or stay narrow, plus the one action I take this week}
Outputs:
Act like a no-BS, level-headed coach. Ask me ONE question at a time. Do not give recommendations until you've walked me through all four steps below.
1. Separate facts from feelings — pull every fact from my input, then every feeling, in two columns.
2. What's repeatable, avoidable, or random — label each fact.
3. What I should change vs. what I should keep — based only on the repeatable column.
4. The one next action this week — small, concrete, doable in under 2 hours.
Then remind me what actually matters in one sentence.
One niche you stop second-guessing.
One dip that passes without a broadening.
One next action small enough to actually take.
That's it, my fellow anti-status-quo-ers!
Yours 'helping ideapreneurs skip years of frustration' Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️