How to Build a Business Around Someone Else’s Audience (Instead of Spending Years Building Your Own)

by Anthony Shotton · August 24, 2026

The fastest path to making money online isn’t attracting millions of visitors. It’s finding the people who are already gathered together.

One of the biggest mistakes aspiring online entrepreneurs make is believing they need a huge audience before they can make money.

So they spend months—or even years—trying to grow a YouTube channel, build an email list, master Instagram, or crack the latest social media algorithm.

What if you skipped that entire process?

Instead of building an audience from scratch, build a business around an audience that already exists.

Every day, millions of people gather in Facebook groups, Reddit communities, Discord servers, newsletters, YouTube channels, LinkedIn groups, and niche forums to talk about the things they care about most. They’re asking questions, sharing frustrations, recommending products, and looking for solutions.

That means they’ve already done the hardest part for you.

They’ve told you exactly what they want.

Step 1: Find Passionate Communities

Start by making a list of topics you’re interested in and then search for communities centered around those topics.

Look for:

Facebook Groups with thousands of active members
Reddit communities (subreddits)
Discord servers
Popular YouTube channels
Industry newsletters
Specialized forums
LinkedIn groups

Don’t worry about how many members they have. Activity is far more important than size.

A group with 3,000 engaged members is often far more valuable than one with 300,000 people who never participate.

Step 2: Become a Student

Here’s where most people get it wrong: They join a community and immediately start trying to sell something.

Don’t.

Spend a week or two simply observing by reading the posts, watching the conversations, paying attention to the questions people ask repeatedly and noticing which posts generate hundreds of comments.

Look for complaints, confusion and unmet needs.

You’re doing market research that companies often spend thousands of dollars to obtain, only you get it for free.

Step 3: Look for Patterns

After a while, you’ll start noticing the same conversations happening over and over.

Maybe photographers keep asking which editing software is best.

Perhaps Etsy sellers constantly wonder how to increase sales.

Dog owners might repeatedly ask how to stop destructive chewing.

Those repeated questions are opportunities.

When hundreds of people ask the same question, there’s probably money hiding behind it.

Step 4: Build What They’re Already Asking For

Now create something that solves one specific problem and remember that it doesn’t have to be complicated.

You could create:

An ebook
A video course
A spreadsheet
A Notion template
A prompt library
A checklist
A swipe file
A directory
A members-only newsletter
A printable planner
A toolkit

You don’t need to invent the next Facebook.

Simple products solve simple problems every single day.

Step 5: Make Your First Version Small

Many entrepreneurs spend six months building the “perfect” course.

Don’t.

Create the smallest product that genuinely helps people.

If you’re helping real estate agents organize leads, maybe it’s just a CRM template.

If you’re serving teachers, perhaps it’s a collection of classroom printables.

If you’re targeting newsletter writers, maybe it’s 100 subject lines that consistently increase open rates.

Start small and improve later.

Step 6: Become Part of the Community

Here’s the secret that separates successful entrepreneurs from spammers.

Be genuinely helpful by answering questions, sharing useful resources, celebrating other people’s wins and offering thoughtful advice.

Become someone people recognize.

When community members already know and trust you, your products feel like natural recommendations—not advertisements.

Trust always sells better than traffic.

Step 7: Listen More Than You Sell

One of the greatest advantages of building around an existing audience is that your customers keep telling you what to create next.

After selling your first product, ask buyers questions.

What else are they struggling with?

What takes too much time?

What do they wish existed?

Your next product should come directly from those answers.

Instead of guessing what people might buy, you’ll be building products customers are already requesting.

Step 8: Expand Carefully

Once you’ve earned the trust of one community, look for similar audiences.

For example, if your productivity templates become popular with freelance writers, they may also appeal to consultants, designers, virtual assistants, and coaches.

One successful product can often serve several closely related communities.

That’s how a small side project becomes a real business.

A Real-World Example

One of the best examples of this strategy is Stacked Marketer.

Instead of trying to appeal to everyone interested in business, it focused on marketers who wanted curated industry news. By serving a clearly defined audience exceptionally well, it grew into one of the most respected marketing newsletters, generating substantial revenue through sponsorships, memberships, and partnerships.

It didn’t invent a new audience.

It served an existing one better than anyone else.

The Big Takeaway

Too many entrepreneurs start with an idea and then go looking for customers.

Flip that process around.

Start with the customers.

Find the communities where they already gather. Listen to what they’re talking about. Pay attention to the problems they haven’t solved. Then create something that makes their lives easier.

When you build around an audience that’s already engaged, you eliminate much of the guesswork that causes new businesses to fail.

The internet doesn’t need another generic product.

It needs better solutions for the conversations that are already happening.

And those conversations are taking place right now—you just have to join them.

What This Guy Stumbled Across By Accident Nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO Is Anything But Average.