“It's like, oh, so hot right now... well, it seems to have already been kind of rounding the curve. He's better off chasing [the adjacent sport] instead. That's the new one.”

Don't enter a niche that's already rounding the curve — find the next-curve trend

Bernard's heuristic for picking an audience: don't enter a niche past its growth peak — find the next-curve trend. By the time a trend is consensus-hot, TAM expansion has slowed; the better bet is the adjacent emerging niche gaining momentum. Validate the trend curve is still rising, not flattening, before building.