I Have 47 Ideas and One Working Brain Cell

Let me paint you a picture. It’s 11pm. I’m on the sofa with a dachshund at my feet and a cup of tea I’ve reheated twice, scrolling through colour analysis content. Within about four minutes I’ve seen a “Which is she?” reel, a “What Spring actually wears” carousel, a “Stop wearing black if you’re a Summer” video, and someone draping a very patient friend in seven shades of coral while a trending audio plays.

None of it is bad. Much of it is lovely. Some of it made me think, oh, that’s clever. But somewhere around the fifth reel a small, unhelpful voice piped up: the market is saturated, Jena. What exactly are you adding?

Today’s post is my attempt to answer that voice honestly, without pretending I’ve got it all figured out.

Yes, it’s crowded. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Colour analysis has had a proper moment. Somewhere in the last few years it went from a slightly retro curiosity (hello, 1980s “Colour Me Beautiful” paperbacks) to a full-blown online phenomenon. Analysts are popping up in every city, training programmes are filling, and the algorithm has decided that everyone must know their season immediately.

I launched Glow Theory in May 2026, well after that wave started building. I’d love to tell you I strategically timed the market. I did not. I finished my training, got certified, and then discovered that a great many other people had done the same thing, some of them years earlier, some of them with a following of six figures and a ring light that probably cost more than my first car.

There’s a specific flavour of wobble that comes with this. It isn’t “should I quit?” It’s quieter and more insidious: does the world need another one of me?

The content trap

Here’s what I noticed when I started making things. The easiest content to make is the content that already works. “Which is she?” videos perform. Seasonal breakdowns perform. “Colours that make you look tired” performs like nobody’s business.

So the temptation is to make a slightly different version of those. Same format, different voice, maybe a nicer background. And I’ve done a bit of that, because you have to start somewhere and because, frankly, the formats are popular for a reason. People enjoy guessing. People enjoy being told which colours suit them. It’s satisfying in the way a good quiz is satisfying.

But I could feel myself sanding down the edges of what I actually wanted to say. When you copy a format, you inherit its assumptions, and most of the popular formats assume the audience wants one thing: a verdict. You’re a Soft Autumn. Here are your colours. Goodbye.

What about the person who’s been told she’s a Summer, bought an entire wardrobe accordingly, and still feels a bit flat in half of it? What about the person who got analysed twice and received two different answers? What about the one who wants to understand the why, the undertone and value and chroma of it all, rather than just being handed a swatch fan and a smile?

Those people exist. I’ve met them. They’re in my DMs. They’re just not the ones the algorithm is chasing.

The ideas problem (or: the opposite of writer’s block)

Now, you’d think a saturated market would leave me short of things to say. The reverse is true. I have too many ideas, and I’m not entirely sure that’s better.

A partial list of what’s currently living in my notes app:

• A deep dive into why so many draping results get muddied by makeup, and why I ask clients to arrive completely bare-faced (yes, even the tinted moisturiser, and yes, I know, I’m sorry)

• A series on what analysts actually see during a draping, translated from the blunt version we use in training (”her chin is casting a shadow”) into words a human being would like to hear

• A whole platform for other analysts, because I keep thinking that the profession would benefit from better shared language

• Sub-season content that goes way beyond the four main seasons

• Guides, glossaries, palettes, tools, a podcast I have no business starting, an entire imaginary shop

• At least three things I’ve forgotten about that I’ll rediscover at 2am

Every one of these feels urgent the moment I think of it. Every one of them is, in isolation, a decent idea. Together they are a very charming way of never finishing anything.

I suspect this is familiar to anyone who’s ever started something of their own. When you build a business, the ideas don’t queue politely. They arrive all at once, wearing party hats, demanding to be first. And the seductive lie is that if you just had enough time, you’d do them all.

You won’t. Neither will I. The real work is choosing.

So what do people actually want?

Here’s the honest bit: I don’t fully know yet. But I have some hypotheses, based on the questions I keep getting, the conversations in consultations, and the things I would have wanted to read when I was first tumbling down this rabbit hole myself.

1. They want to understand, not just be told.
People are curious about the mechanics. Why does one shade of green make your skin glow and another make you look like you’ve just stepped off a ferry in a gale? “Because you’re a Winter” is an answer. “Because your skin has cool undertones and high contrast, and that green has a muted, yellow-leaning quality that competes with you” is an explanation, and I think explanation is far more satisfying, and far more useful when you’re standing in a shop.

2. They want to know what happens in a real session.
There’s a lot of mystery around what colour analysis involves, and a lot of scepticism, too. What does a draping feel like? Why the bare face? What if I get a result I don’t love? How do you know? I’d like to pull the curtain back.

3. They want honesty about the messy bits.
Nobody talks enough about the results that don’t fit neatly, the in-between people, the “I’m technically a True Summer but I absolutely adore how I look in a rich burgundy” situations. Real life is fuzzier than a four-season quiz. I’d like to make room for the fuzz.

4. They want to actually use it.
Knowing your palette is one thing. Standing in a changing room with three options and a nagging doubt is another. Practical, wearable, “here’s what to do on a Tuesday” content feels like an underserved gap.

5. They might want the behind-the-scenes of someone building this in real time.
That’s what this post is, in a way. I’m not writing from the summit. I’m writing from about a third of the way up, slightly out of breath, taking notes.

I could be completely wrong about some of these, which is why I’ll ask you properly at the end.

On being unique (a word I’m trying to use less)

Whenever people talk about standing out, the advice tends to be “find your niche” or “be authentic,” which is roughly as helpful as telling someone lost in a forest to “find the trees.”

Here’s the more useful thing I’ve landed on: you don’t need to be the only one doing something. You need to be the one doing it in a way that could only be you.

There are lots of analysts. There is only one person who’ll explain undertone using a dachshund’s coat as the visual aid, who has strong opinions about the ethics of bare-faced consultations, who writes in this particular tone, and who has likened their client to a sickly Victorian child when they’re in the wrong colour on more than one occasion. My voice is warm, a bit cheeky, and I’d like to think reasonably clever. It’s not a strategy so much as a description of how I already talk.

The uncomfortable part is that this only works if I actually let it show. Which means resisting the pull toward the polished, generic, could-be-anyone version of my content. Every time I catch myself writing something that would fit equally well on any other analyst’s page, that’s my cue to start again.

Pushing forward when the maths feels bad

Some days, the truth is that momentum is a decision rather than a feeling. On the days I don’t feel like a person with a thriving business, I’ve found a handful of things that help:

Ship the imperfect thing. A published, slightly rough post teaches me more than a perfect one that lives in drafts forever. Feedback is the only real market research.

Pick one idea per season. Not per year, per season. (I’m aware of the pun.) The others go into a parking lot, not a bin. They aren’t rejected, they’re queued.

Stop comparing my chapter one to someone else’s chapter twelve. The analyst with the enormous following didn’t start there. I’m just seeing the highlight reel, and I know from experience that highlight reels leave out the reheated tea and the 11pm spirals.

Talk to actual humans. Every client conversation gives me more clarity than a week of scrolling. The people in front of me are not “the market.” They are individuals with specific, often surprising questions.

Remember why I started. When I was teetering on the precipice of 40, I started noticing my aging face. Not in a bad way, but in a way that says I’ve spent almost 40 years on this planet and I am, in fact, no longer a spring chicken. One day I saw a colour analysis video and saw for myself exactly how abruptly someone’s appearance changed when going from the wrong to the right colours. I decided at that very moment to learn my season - and because I never do anything half-assed, the only way in my mind to learn my season was to learn the methodology behind it. I very well may be the only person who has essentially paid $5,000+ for a “colour analysis” (aka mastery course, drapes, the whole she-bang), haha. But I don’t regret that for a minute because it has led me on this very wild and wonderful journey.

None of this is particularly dramatic. That’s rather the point. Pushing forward mostly looks like small, slightly boring, repeated action.

Now, over to you

This is where I need your help, and I mean that fully.

I’d love to know what you want more of. Not what you think you should say you want, but what you’d actually click on, read to the end, or forward to a friend. Have a think about these:

• What’s the one thing about colour analysis you still don’t understand?

• What content have you seen that made you think “finally, someone said it”?

• What are you sick of seeing?

• Would you rather have deep-dive explainers, real consultation stories, practical styling help, or a peek behind the curtain of building this business?

Hit reply, leave a comment, or send me a message. I read everything, and I mean that in the way that involves tea and slightly too much enthusiasm.

The market may be saturated, but a saturated market is also proof that people care. They’re hungry for this stuff. The question isn’t whether there’s room. It’s whether there’s room for the specific, honest, slightly chaotic thing I have to offer.

I think there is. I’m going to keep finding out.

Until next time,
Jena x