Niche Pursuits Community Review: Why I Joined –Twice

…Because I didn’t learn the first time.

I’ve been writing online for more than 20 years, blogging for more than a decade, and it’s been my full-time job since 2018. Over that time, I’ve tried a lot of ways to continue learning, growing, and progressing in my career – because, yes, this is a career. (Or at least it was until 2023 when Google decided that small publishers don’t deserve traffic anymore, but that’s a story for another day.)

Podcasts have been a great way I’ve done some passive learning in the past few years; heck, I even have dabbled in podcasting for this site from time to time. Whenever you chat with fellow bloggers who also listen to blogging industry podcast, it seems that one is recommended above all others: Niche Pursuits.

Started in 2020, Niche Pursuits quickly became one of the most popular – and arguably one of the best – podcasts about running sites and making money. I’ve been a subscriber for years, and am generally a fan. (I think the interviews have gotten increasingly unrealistic as models for success, and they almost entirely focus on non-niche site topics now, so they’ve lost the thread, but this isn’t a podcast review, so let’s keep moving.)

I was therefore excited to join the Niche Pursuits Community when it was announced in early 2024; it seemed like the perfect time as many of my sites were losing traffic and thus income. I joined in March 2024 and stayed in for one month; I re-joined in July 2024, and have left the community again as of November 2024. I wanted to write a post to share why I joined – and why I left the community… twice!

I hope this Niche Pursuits Community review will help you decide if it’s right for you, or if you can save that $47/mo when you’re already struggling financially.

What’s the Niche Pursuits Community?

Without getting too in the weeds or sounding like a sales page, the Niche Pursuits Community is an online community of fellow web-based entrepreneurs. It’s comprised of a few different things:

• Weekly calls with experts and fellow community members
• Small-group masterminds and short-term larger-group cohorts focused on specific topics or business ideas
• A Discord community for ongoing conversation and support

As of writing, there have been masterminds focused on topics including Facebook, SEO, Pinterest, and the Amazon Influencer program (among others); cohorts have been about Facebook and Email/Newsletters; the Discord community has a metric shitton of channels, including:

* Denotes a channel that hadn’t been active in at least a month as of writing this review.

As you can see from that list, the Niche Pursuits Community covers – and actively discusses – A LOT of different topics, marketing channels, and business opportunities. There are, of course, more active members who participate in the majority of conversations, but for 15/24 channels to be active within the past few weeks tells you that people are really in there, trying different things, talking to one another, and aiming to be successful.

My Experience & Frustrations

As I mentioned, I’ve joined the Niche Pursuits Community twice: in March 2024 (for one month) and in July 2024 (for three months). After this second stint, I’m done being part of the community; while they’ve ironed out some of the kinks that frustrated me during my first time as a member, there are some new issues that I think they’ve baked into the culture of the community which just aren’t for me.

1. Spencer & Jared aren’t really active in the community.
   
   Jared is basically not present in the community, though I suppose I don’t know the breakdown of how they split up the “Niche Pursuits” business as a whole. Spencer occasionally tunes in for calls, but is pretty much non-existent in the Discord. Instead, the community is run by a community manager, who even writes the weekly newsletter emails in Spencer’s name.
   
   
2. The community focuses on short-term wins at any cost, rather than ethical, long-term business building.
   
   Look, I get it. Right now is a really shitty time to be an online business person, especially if you were primarily a blogger/website owner until 2023. I’m in the trenches too. But I was consistently frustrated that the Niche Pursuits Community is highlighting experts and member success stories that focus on quick wins rather than good business. For example, the Facebook cohort taught everyone to just create AI and meme content – copyright violations, what are those?!
   
   They also consistently suggest that having no knowledge, experience, or authority about a topic shouldn’t stop you from starting a site/social media/business about that topic. I know EEAT was bullshit, but I still think we need to have integrity as business owners, not just fake it all, all the time.
   
   
3. Masterminds are run by fellow community members.
   
   While I think that community-run masterminds are a great idea, they’re also a lot of work. I ran the Facebook mastermind for three months as a member, and it made me feel pretty taken advantage of in the end – I was working hard to run the mastermind and share my knowledge and paying for the privilege…?
   
   I know there are other benefits of the community, but leaders should at least get a discount, if not free membership, for the work it takes to run a mastermind group.
   
   Additionally, I think that in a community like this, masterminds should be run by experts or authorities in the topic of that group. A lot of the way that Spencer & Jared built their audience is by talking about their success in different projects – the Amazon Influencer program, the Facebook Performance Bonus program, etc. – yet (as I said) they aren’t really involved at all, and the folks running the groups are not necessarily more knowledgeable or successful than anyone else… so we’re all just wandering in the dark together.

So given all that, it might be obvious why I’m leaving the Niche Pursuits Community. Admittedly, those are all valid reasons that contributed, but the main reason is the cost: as my sites are struggling, I don’t have money and time to spend on anything that’s not providing a return to help me grow my traffic or revenue.

Pros & Cons

Time for a quick lil pros and cons list, eh?

I could probably keep going with pros and corresponding cons, but you get the picture – I’m already 1,200 words into this review. Let’s wrap it up…

Is the Niche Pursuits Community Right for You?

Honestly, this has to be something you decide for yourself.

• Do you have the $47 per month to spend right now, even if you don’t recoup it through any of the ‘side hustles’ you try after joining?
• Do you want close access and advice from Spencer and Jared, or are you okay with crowd-sourced advice and support?
• Are you okay with nothing you try being successful, or do you really need to find something that’s going to work?
• What are your long term goals, and do they align with what the Niche Pursuits Community can support?
• Are you open and willing to learn from others, or are you resistant to that?
• Do you have the time to invest in being an active, engaged member of the community?

These are just some of the questions you should try and answer before signing up.

After considering them, you might find that, yeah, the Niche Pursuits Community will be a good place to support you on your side hustles or your whatever’s next. In that case, I wish you well and hope it is valuable for you.

If not, I’m glad I could share my thoughts to help you learn from both of my experiences, which is way better than me since I didn’t learn from my first one!

Have any other questions about my experience in the Niche Pursuits Community? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll try to help!