I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that this is niche marketing is what helped this product take off.  The fact that it was a really popular Father's Day gift meant that it hit the mainstream market with good force. 

I will agree that starting small and targeting for example, a smaller geographic niche (via newspapers and radio ads) is a better way to drive product buzz.  There are ways to target niches without having to do complicated research about demographics and customer psychographics but they're critical in reducing the amount of variables that occur when advertising.  Any component or tool that increases your marketing conversions from 1 percent to even 5 percent is very valuable, especially in niche marketing where the stakes and expected returns on investment are higher.

david,

love the push back and respect many of your contributions throughout the StartupNation community.

regarding the juggling project, what made it a "niche" effort is that we focused on the high-end market only, by virtue of price, packaging, promotional and product messaging, and most of all, distribution channel. the high-end department stores like neiman marcus had NEVER carried a juggling product before we got to them.

a niche, from our point of view, is any narrowly defined market or distribution channel. that's why we think our More Balls Than Most adventure illustrates the power of focusing on a niche.