The First New Cat Species in 100 Years Just Became a T-Shirt Niche

About this video

He pitches a time-sensitive print-on-demand niche built on news he reports: scientists, he says, have identified the first new cat species in over 100 years — since 1923. He calls the animal the ‘Tilo’ (the name and scientific name are rendered inconsistently in the captions), describes it as a tiny spotted wildcat from Bolivia’s cloud forest, smaller than a house cat, and retells the story he gives for it: a man found it roadside as a kitten, kept it as a pet for about a year, realised it was wild and gave it to a sanctuary, and DNA testing showed a new species. He then searches Amazon for the animal’s name plus ‘shirt’ and shows very few results, calling this a keyword gap: millions of people are learning a word almost nobody is selling yet, versus thousands of competing listings for generic ‘cat’ or ‘black cat’ shirts. His play is to combine evergreen cat-lover buyers with a trending term, and to move within days while, he says, videos, TikTok and news coverage spike. He advises making an accurate-looking design — not a cartoon cat that looks nothing like the animal — using Ideogram, Kittl, Gemini or ChatGPT, using the prompt he shares, and mining TikTok/YouTube comments for sayings such as ’tiny but wild’ and fan-club concepts. He specifies a 4,500 x 5,400 pixel transparent PNG for Merch by Amazon, says to check the words on a trademark site first (about 30 seconds, and always verify yourself), make five variations per niche (cat alone, funny text, new phrase, new angle, different shirt colour), and upload the same file to other platforms such as Redbubble and Etsy rather than leaving designs sitting on your computer.

Key takeaways

• His core tactic is a keyword gap: a news-driven search term people are about to use that, he shows, has almost no shirts listed on Amazon yet
• He frames the niche as evergreen plus trend — cat lovers buy all year, so he expects the opportunity to outlast the initial news spike if you move in the first days
• Design accuracy matters: use AI tools like Ideogram, Kittl, Gemini or ChatGPT, but make the cat actually look like the new species and expect several prompt iterations
• Before uploading, spend about 30 seconds checking the words on a trademark site and verify safety yourself; he says a real animal species name should generally be clear, but to always double-check
• Make five variations per niche (image-only, funny text, alternate phrase, alternate angle, alternate shirt colour) sized 4,500 x 5,400 transparent PNG for Merch by Amazon, and cross-post to Redbubble and Etsy

Episode details: published September 22, 2026 · 9:04 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are RJ Martinez’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

← Previous: This Hat Shop Made $85,000 - I Cloned It With No Machine · Next: 5 Low Competition Print on Demand Niches This Week (Only 102 Competitors on This One) →

All RJ Martinez videos · RJ Martinez profile · RJ Martinez on YouTube