The Year I Went Out on My Own (and Stopped Niching Myself to Death)

Earlier this year, I thought going out on my own would mostly be a business decision.

It turned out to be a personality decision.

Every step along the way, courses, programs, and conversations with experienced fractionals, the advice was consistent and well-intentioned:

Niche down.
Get tighter.
Pick the lane.

To be clear…that advice works.
Just not the way I expected it to work for me.

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I tried to niche by role. Then by industry. Then by problem.

I’m a generalist by nature.
I’ve worked across industries, functions, and stages, all tech-oriented, but wildly different in how chaos actually shows up.

So I tried the usual paths:

• early-stage SaaS

• RevOps

• COO-as-a-service

• lifecycle systems

• operational clarity

None of it was wrong, but none of it felt like the center of the work.

What I kept noticing instead was this:

The clients who got the most value weren’t choosing me because of the label.
They were choosing me because of how it felt to work together.

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What actually clicked wasn’t a niche. It was a signal.

Somewhere in the middle of my journey, I stopped asking “What niche should I pick?”
And started asking a better question:

Who do I do my best work with?

The answer was painfully obvious once I let myself see it.

People who want:

• an ops co-pilot, not a savior

• someone who can hold complexity and emotion

• someone who tells the truth without flattening the room

• systems that support real life, not performative productivity

Extreme empathy.
No bullshit.
Dry wit.
Operator brain.

That combination turned out to be the niche.

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I learned that empathy doesn’t make the work softer. It makes it sharper.

I used to think I had to choose between:

• being empathetic

• or being decisive

What I learned this year is that empathy is what unlocks decisiveness.

When people feel understood, they stop defending broken systems.
When they stop defending, they get honest.
When they get honest, things finally move.

A nice lil mix of therapy and operations done right.

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I also learned that sounding “professional” is overrated.

The more I tried to sound like a polished operator archetype, the less effective I was. (This was true in person, on LinkedIn, and on Substack.)

Everything got better when I:

• let the dry humor stay

• let the side-eye show

• said “this is working, but it’s costing you more than you think”

• named the thing everyone felt but no one had words for

Turns out clients want clarity without condescension. Not perfection and buzzwords.

That shift showed up most clearly when I wrote Why Every Founder Needs a Woman in the Ops Seat.

It was one of the first times I stopped hedging, stopped softening the edges, and said what I actually believe. Even knowing not everyone would agree.

It also turned out to be the post that resonated the most.

This shift made things clearer. In the last six months, this community grew to ~4,000 readers here on Substack and ~3,600 on LinkedIn.

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What I’m taking into next year

I’m entering the next year with a much simpler filter:

• Fewer clients, deeper work

• Systems that support humans, not just metrics

• And zero interest in working with people who want certainty theater instead of real progress

I didn’t niche into an industry.
I niched into my own personal brand and those who operate similarly.

Turned out to be the most sustainable decision I made all year.

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The quiet truth underneath all of this

Going out on my own forced me to stop borrowing other people’s language for success.

Once I sounded like myself, the right people found me, and the wrong ones quietly opted out.

I’m calling this a branding win, and ultimately, alignment.

More of that next year. Cheers to 2026!

P.S.
This year didn’t happen in a vacuum. I’m deeply grateful to the friends, family, fellow operators, community builders, and fractional folks who listened to half-formed ideas, challenged my thinking, and reminded me I didn’t need to sand myself down to be credible.

Thank you especially to my friends on Substack who got me here. I suggest you follow these people, they’re sharing the good stuff! ash, Sibi S. Murugesan, Shaina Anderson, Harry Siggins, Dennis Berry, Jessie Schofer, Julie Hanell, Sam Illingworth, mallory contois, Lydia Lee, Juan Salas-Romer, Melanie Goodman, Elena Calvillo at Product, Karo (Product with Attitude), Chris Tottman, John Brewton, Xaver Lehmann, Colin Greene and the many others who may not be on this platform yet, buuut maybe should be. ;)