Focus first, growth second — Kelford Labs Daily
One customer before many customers.
It’s tempting to think that the more people we offer our services to, or provide them for, the more clients we’ll gain.
But the opposite is true.
The less focused and more broad we are—the greater our “addressable market”—the fewer clients we’ll actually get.
Because if we’re good for everyone, we’re not the best for anyone. We’re just another buffet, trying to make it up on volume and staying at the bottom of the market because we’re not credibly the best at anything at all.
Because sophisticated buyers buy based on credibility and certainty that they’re not getting a bad deal far more than they prioritize getting a good deal.
This is the trouble Pebble fell into: They tried to scale beyond their core audience too quickly, and the whole thing fell apart.
See also the Humane AI Pin, which wanted to become Apple overnight, and are now looking to sell off the company in an attempt to salvage something from the disaster.
If you don’t have a clear, defined customer willing to pay almost anything to work with you in particular, it’ll be next to impossible to find enough customers willing to pay anything at all.
So, first, focus. Then, growth.
Not the other way around.
