The Myth of Scaling With A Wide Net

by | Nov 11, 2020

I have been looking for an example of a successful company that started “wide” by being many things to many people and then grew from there without focusing.

I have been looking for 20 years. I still haven’t found one.

It’s totally possible. I just haven’t seen it.

Here’s what I see when I have looked at thousands of examples of success stories:

When they started growing fast, they always had a narrow focus.

  • The focus of just the thing they made. Not everything they could make.
  • Or the focus of who specifically they served. Not everyone.
  • Or why their thing was so special to somebody. It was really amazing to somebody, but never everybody.

Some ended up becoming big companies that are everything to everybody now, but I always find they were the opposite of “wide” when they grew fast in the early years.

Amazon is a huge business that does many things for everybody now, but it started and grew as just books and just online. Back in the mid-1990s, that was almost nobody in a corner of a niche business.

I’m still looking for a company that started out wide and stayed wide to grow big.

Do you know of any?

Let me know.

Greg Head posted this on LinkedIn on November 11, 2020.

Check out the comments and join the discussion on LinkedIn.

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