An industry thesis driven search is all the rage today, but getting up to speed on an new industry/niche quickly is a skill.

Here is how we do it in ~27 hours

Step 1: Desktop research focused on validating that the industry is growing and has decent margins. No need to go any deeper

Resources: Ibisworld, snippets of paid research, Public Co disclosures, Fed data
Time: 5 hours

Step 2: Identify experts. Build a list of industry organizations with Boards, authors of whitepapers/editorials, retired executives. Use Upwork to find email addresses.

Resources: LinkedIn, Industry Publications
Time: 5 hours

Step 3: Cursory research on experts. The goal of this research is to write a lightly personalized email. If the expert responds, go deeper ahead of the call.

We get about a 15% response rate on these emails and try to get 5 expert calls per niche
Time: 15 min/expert (~8 hrs)

Step 4: Prep & interview experts. Read what they have written, listen to podcasts & write a question list. Some calls will only last 15 mins, others will last 2+ hours. Don't book these back to back!

Time: 1 hour prep per call, ~45 min per call avg for total of ~9 hours

Step 4 is where all the value lies. These experts have spent 20+ years in the industry and know the most important talking points / trends. If you decide to move forward with the niche, these talking points are what will make you sound competent when speaking with an owner

Conclusion: In ~27 hours we can feel confident about whether or not it is worth spending more time in a niche (building a list of companies, talking to owners, etc.)