Your Product Should Be A Specialist
How to create a valuable product
Builders often make the mistake of trying to create a generalist product, thinking broader appeal is the core of success. However, products should aim to be highly opinionated, not neutral. By building for everyone, you are building for no one in particular.
Fortune favors the bold. And so does the market.
This doesn’t mean that you must be single-dimensional
People, in general, should be multidimensional – especially founders. A well-rounded person is a collection of specialists. As an individual, single-dimensionality caps potential.
Being good at one thing is valuable. Being great at multiple interrelated things is a force multiplier. Skills have a network effect, as growth compounds across disciplines.
While people thrive on interconnected interests and skills, products do not. Instead, they are most valuable when they are purpose built, as engineered tools rather than as entities. Our personal growth benefits from variety, but the success of a product depends on its singular focus.
How Conversions Happens
The internet has given us extreme reach; we’re exposed to more people, ideas, and products than ever. This abundance has shifted life’s challenges from "finding" to "filtering."
When everyone is overloaded with choices, the middle of the pack is the worst place to be. Standing out has a lower floor (greater chance of rejection), but also a higher ceiling (greater upside). Conversions come from a burning ‘yes!’, not a lukewarm ‘sure’. Consider this concept socially:
Dating – It’s not ranked-choice voting. You don’t need everyone to find you 'kind of attractive'; you need only one person swooning.
Making friends – Deep interests create stronger bonds than surface-level commonalities.
Products succeed in the same way. If 90% of the market thinks that your product is the 2nd best, but none think you are number 1, you might win a ranked-choice election, but you won’t have any customers. Congrats on the election.
Where Does Broad Appeal Come In?
Some argue that broad appeal leads to greater success. It does, but only for an already successful ‘business’. Mass appeal is not achieved by appealing strongly to everyone — it’s achieved by appealing strongly to a core group without alienating everyone else. In short, a successful product that is not abrasive to its non-users has a higher ceiling.
The biggest music stars certainly have a core of die-hard fans. The product is specialized for those fans. However, they reach the next level by being agreeable to non-fans. There is nothing abrasive about Taylor Swift or Drake’s music. It’s good music for things like, shopping.
The specialization for diehard fans makes these products successful, and the non-abrasiveness allows them to reach their maximum potential. Importantly, the non-abrasiveness is not what made those products successful in the first place. It heightens existing success, but does not create initial success.
The most successful memecoins also benefit from this second-layer effect: the friendlier and more positive (aka agreeable) they are, the higher their ceiling.
Conclusion
People reach their highest potential by mastering multiple domains. Products reach theirs by doing one thing better than anything else. People should be multidimensional. Products should be specialists. Don’t be scared to build an opinionated product.