You have no idea
You know you want a video, or a series, or something people will actually watch. The subject is blank. This takes you from blank to three real options.
Nolly Niche Finder
Find profitable YouTube niches
before everyone else
This is the skill that runs before production. It asks you two questions, then goes and reads YouTube for real: who is already making videos in this space, how many people are watching, whether the money moves, and how crowded it is. It comes back with three film ideas, scored, and you pick one. Nolly Studio builds it.
It costs nothing. Nothing is rendered, no video or voice is generated. You only need a license when you want the film.
Runs inside Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode. The skill you already have.
the channel
subscribers, cadence, format
the uploads
views across twenty videos
the shape
hook, pacing, production
Who this is for - Beat the YouTube game!
For the person who opens the app, stares at a blank screen and closes it again. You want to make something. You do not know what, and every idea you get in your head dies before you type it.
You saw something you liked
A video or a channel that works and you cannot say why. It reads that video properly and shows you the shape of it, so you can put your own subject inside.
You are not sure it is a good idea
You have a subject but you want to know if anyone is watching that kind of thing before you spend money making it. The scoring answers that.
Step one
Two questions. That is the whole interview.
It asks through the question tool in your harness, one question per turn, and it waits for your answer. No forms, no long questionnaires.
Question 1
Where are you starting from?
- I know what I want to make
- I want to copy a video I've seen
- I don't know yet, help me find it
- Show me what's working right now
Your answer decides everything after it. If you already know the subject, it skips the research and hands you straight to Nolly Studio. If you have a video to copy, it takes the decode route.
Question 2
What kind of video do you want to make?
- Narration
- Story-telling
- Skit
- Explainer
- Advert
- Promo or flyer
- Music video
- Trailer
- Not sure, pick for me
“Not sure, pick for me” is a normal answer and it does not push you. That is the whole reason you came here, so it goes to research and finds what is working in that format right now.
Say it in your own words, in the harness you already use: I want to make videos but I have no idea what to make yet, help me find a niche
Step two
It goes and reads YouTube. Not from memory.
It searches for the channels working in your niche right now, opens their pages, and reads each one. Subscriber counts, view counts and upload dates come straight from the YouTube Data API, and it checks a channel's recent uploads so it can tell a real format from one lucky video. Every channel it names, every number and every title comes from a page it actually opened. If it cannot open something, it does not tell you about it. A made up competitor is worse than no research, because you would build a real film on top of it.
Four things it pulls off every channel
01
Format
Narration over b-roll? Scripted characters? A talking host? How long their videos usually run, and when they break their own rule.
02
Opening hook
What the first five seconds actually do. A question, a number on screen, a face, a scene already in motion. This is the part you can reuse.
03
Pacing
Cuts every two seconds or every ten. How much talking. Where the music comes in. Rough is fine.
04
Production
Phone or camera. Location or studio. Solo or a cast. This tells you what you could realistically make, and what Nolly Studio has to match.
Then it scores what it found
Four axes, one to five each. These scores are what you are really choosing between.
axis 01
Demand
Is anyone watching? It looks at recent view counts and whether the numbers hold across many videos, not one lucky hit.
axis 02
Competition
How crowded is it? Twenty strong channels doing the same thing is hard to enter. Two might be a gap, or a dead end.
axis 03
Producibility
Can Nolly Studio actually make it? Narration over b-roll, scripted scenes, animated explainers and product ads are all fine. A film that needs your real face as the star is a different product.
axis 04
Money
Can this earn? Sponsors, affiliate links, a product being sold, a course. A niche with money beats a niche with views.
Step three
Three ideas come back. You pick one.
Not ten. Three is enough to choose from and few enough that you actually decide. Each one comes with the same parts, so you can compare them properly. This is what a shortlist looks like.
Idea 01
How Much Is Your Rent Really?
Narration · about 60 seconds · vertical
Hook. Opens on the question: how much is your rent really?
Beats
- Hook with the question on screen
- What landlords say vs what the lease says
- Three moves to check before you sign
- The line to say back to them
Channels behind it. Channel A (500k monthly views), Channel B (rental skits)
Why it should work. People search for this before they sign, and the topic travels from Lagos to every other city.
Idea 02
The Shop That Ran Out of Rice
Story-telling · about 90 seconds · vertical
Hook. Cold open on the owner counting an empty shelf.
Beats
- Cold open, empty shelf
- How the shortage started
- What she did about it
- Price card and where to find her
Channels behind it. Channel C (market skits), Channel D (owner stories)
Why it should work. Food and money together is the pairing Nigerian audiences share most, and it sells to small businesses too.
Idea 03
One Minute on Your Money
Explainer · about 45 seconds · vertical
Hook. A number on screen: what your side hustle pays per hour.
Beats
- The number on screen
- Three side hustles compared
- The one that pays least
- Where to start this week
Channels behind it. Channel E (personal finance shorts), Channel F (side hustle lists)
Why it should work. Short, repeatable and easy to run weekly, so it can become a series instead of one video.
You pick one, or you ask for another angle, or you tell it to narrow the niche further. If two ideas are close, it says which one it would pick and why. You do not have to do all the ranking.
What happens when you pick
It writes a concept brief with the subject, the format, the length and aspect, the hook, the beats, the reference links and the one line thesis. That brief is the film, decided. Nolly Studio picks it up from there and stops at the draft gate before anything is paid for.
Saved as projects/<your-slug>/concept.md and shown to you in full, not just written to disk somewhere.
The other route
You saw a video you want to copy
Give it the link or the channel name. It reads the video properly and pulls out seven things. Then you choose what to keep: the format and pacing, the topic area, the look, or the production scale. Your own subject goes into that shape. You are not copying the content, you are borrowing the shape.
01
The format
Narration over b-roll, scripted characters, a talking host, an interview, animation, a screen recording, a staged scene. Named in one of those words.
02
The opening hook
The exact first move, written as a sentence you could use yourself. “Opens on the question: how much is your rent really?” Not “interesting hook”.
03
The runtime
Total length, and the length of each part if it is a series. Round numbers are fine.
04
The pacing
How many cuts a minute, how long each shot runs, where the music starts, cold open or title card first.
05
The structure
The beats in order. Hook, problem, three examples, call to action. A shape you can fill with your own subject.
06
The production
Phone or camera, on location or studio, solo or cast, text on screen, how much it looks like a team made it. This is the bar to hit.
07
The pattern behind the series
If it is a channel and not one video, it looks at several. Same format every time, same running gag, same weekly slot, same look. The repetition is the lesson.
FAQ
Questions
Does it cost anything to use+
No. The Niche Finder only researches and plans. No video, image or voice is generated. You need a license only when you pick an idea and want it rendered.
How long does the research take+
A few minutes. Two questions, then it searches YouTube, reads the channels and scores what it finds. If you pick the “copy a video” route it decodes that one video instead.
Where does the research come from+
The YouTube Data API for the numbers, plus web search and page fetches for the rest. Every channel, title and number it shows you comes from a page it actually opened. If it cannot reach the web, it says so and builds the ideas from your answers instead of making them up.
Do I need a YouTube API key+
No, and you do not need a Google Cloud account either. The skill sends your license key to the Nolly Studio site, the site holds the YouTube key, and the numbers come back. Nothing extra to set up, nothing extra to pay for.
Can I make something like a video I already saw+
Yes. Give it the link or the channel name and it decodes the format, the hook, the pacing, the structure and the production level. Then you put your own subject into that shape. You are not copying the content, you are borrowing the shape.
Why exactly three ideas+
Three is enough to choose from and few enough that you actually decide. If two of them are close, it tells you which one it would pick and why.
What happens after I pick one+
It writes a concept brief with the subject, the format, the length, the hook, the beats and the reference links. That brief is what Nolly Studio takes as your decided film. Then the draft gate and the spending cap do the rest.
Do I need both skills+
One license covers both. If you already know exactly what you want to make, skip this one and go straight to Nolly Studio.
Start with one license
One license covers Nolly Studio and the Nolly Niche Finder. Pay once, keep it and every update. Rendering runs on your own accounts.
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