I’m going to share with you one of my personal favorite ways to find new niches, new creative ideas, new messaging opportunities, and new general discoveries that are all capable of inspiring Merch By Amazon designs that can sell.

This is it — a list featuring 100 of the top podcasts in the United States. It goes without saying that we can’t make tshirts about these podcasts or podcasters, but that’s not even where the greatest opportunities lie.

This list of 100 popular podcasts is a window to hundreds of niches. It’s all here. Food. Meditation. Crime. Comedy. Liberalism. Conservatism. And tons of other subniches all hiding within this list  — a list that may feel endless once you start digging.

Now, on the surface, a list of successful podcasts only tells us a few things — like the personalities and niches at hand which are popular. But once you go beyond the obvious and start clicking on the individual podcast links, spending a few minutes on each to read about the latest guests, listen to the intros, peruse the current controversies discussed, and take note of any products and sponsors (and their niches) placed in the podcasts, you’ll start to discover leads — leads that can and should be acted on across Merch By Amazon, Etsy, KDP and everywhere else in POD.

These top podcasts carefully select guests and topics based on what data, dollars, and ratings suggest are important to millions of listeners.  Comedy programs are especially insightful, as they exist to make us laugh through relatable material inspired by the empirical research of successful comedians.

Last week, for instance, the “Monday Morning Podcast” featured a riff on massage guns. Massage guns! Do you know how popular and profitable massage guns are? I didn’t. Just look at the reviews and BSRs on some of these suckers for sale on Amazon. Do a quick Google search and you’ll see that they are vital tools of the trade for masseuses, chiropractors and even beauty salons. Consumers love them too.

How many Merch tshirts reference massage guns? Good luck finding any quality designs in this largely empty niche.

Ideas — proven, profitable, and pertinent to niche audiences — are plentiful in the podcast ecosystem. So if you’re struggling to find new fountains of opportunity-rich niche leads, this is one source that will never run dry.