Niches
Why every member belongs to a niche, and how it shapes your matches.
What a niche is
A niche is the industry or content category you operate in — marketing, SaaS, design, coaching, whatever your community defines. You pick yours during onboarding, and it's the single biggest factor in who you get matched with.
Why it matters
Context makes communities useful. Random matching can leave members reviewing work they don't understand or care about. Niche matching helps surface work to people who are more likely to understand the topic, contribute useful perspectives and form genuine professional relationships around it.
Competition-exclusion
Some communities enable an extra layer on top of niche matching: excluding direct competitors from your review pool. If you're a copywriter and so is the person your Coterie would otherwise match you with, this keeps you from quietly reviewing each other's client pitches. Not every community turns this on — check with your admin if you're not sure whether yours does.
You belong to exactly one niche at a time. If your work has genuinely shifted, ask your community's admin about changing it — this isn't something members can self-serve.