Don't Be Everything for Everyone (Be Something for Someone)

“If you try to be all things to all people, you’ll be nothing to no one.” — Unknown

The Broad Appeal Trap

The boardroom falls silent as the CEO makes her announcement. After months of market research, customer interviews, and planning sessions, the executive team of a mid-sized software company has decided to expand their offering beyond their core market of professional designers. The new strategy aims to reach marketing teams, small business owners, and potentially even consumers.

“Our research shows these markets represent a combined opportunity five times larger than our current niche,” the CEO explains confidently. “With some modifications to our messaging and a few feature adjustments, we can appeal to all of them.”

The product manager shifts uncomfortably in his chair. The head of customer success studies her notes. No one voices what they’re thinking: that this move might undermine everything that made their company special in the first place.

This scene plays out in countless businesses every day. The logic seems impeccable. More customers equals more revenue. More segments equals more customers. Therefore, broader appeal must be the path to growth.

Yet this seemingly rational approach contains a dangerous assumption—that you can expand your appeal without diluting what makes you distinctive in the first place. That you can matter to everyone without mattering less to anyone.

The evidence suggests otherwise. From technology startups to consumer brands to professional services firms, the pattern is clear: those who attempt to appeal to everyone typically end up meaning little to anyone, while those who focus intensely on specific audiences often create extraordinary gravity in their chosen space.

The uncomfortable truth is that meaningful positioning requires sacrifice. The businesses that become truly magnetic don’t achieve this status by broadening their appeal but by deepening it. Not by mattering somewhat to many, but by mattering profoundly to some.

The Mathematics of Meaning

Consider a thought experiment. Imagine positioning as a mathematical equation where your total impact equals the depth of your connection multiplied by the breadth of your audience.

When you attempt to increase breadth (audience size), you almost inevitably decrease depth (connection strength). Your messaging becomes more generic, your features more compromised, your voice more neutral, your essence more diluted.

Mailchimp discovered this reality early in their journey. As founder Ben Chestnut recalls: “In our early days, we tried to make our email marketing tool work for everybody—small businesses, large enterprises, non-profits, individuals. We had this idea that maximum market would mean maximum success.”

But the result was a product that served many audiences adequately while delighting none of them particularly well. “We were getting outflanked by competitors who focused exclusively on enterprise or solely on e-commerce. They were creating deeper solutions for specific needs while we were creating shallow solutions for everyone.”

Mailchimp’s breakthrough came when they deliberately narrowed their focus to serve small businesses and entrepreneurs—a decision that seemed to limit their potential market but ultimately created their most powerful growth engine.

“When we stopped trying to solve everyone’s email problems and focused intensely on small business needs, something surprising happened,” Chestnut explains. “Our product got better for that audience. Our messaging resonated more deeply. Our word-of-mouth accelerated.”

This counterintuitive mathematics—where deliberately reducing your target audience actually increases your market impact—plays out repeatedly across industries. The companies that create the strongest gravitational pull aren’t those with the broadest potential appeal but those with the deepest connection to specific customers.

The Generic Penalty

When you position yourself to appeal to everyone, you must adopt the common denominator across all potential audiences. This creates several specific penalties:

1. The Voice Penalty

To appeal broadly, your communication must avoid distinctive perspective or personality that might resonate with some while alienating others. The result is bland, forgettable messaging that creates no emotional connection.

Consider how Studio Neat, a tiny product design company founded by Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost, took the opposite approach. Their website states plainly: “We are a small company. We like being small. We are not interested in building an empire.”

This direct statement immediately excludes those seeking mass-market products or comprehensive solutions. Yet for their ideal audience—people who value craftsmanship, simplicity, and intentional design—this distinctive voice creates immediate resonance that no generic alternative could match.

As Provost explains: “We’d rather be loved deeply by few than liked mildly by many.”

2. The Feature Penalty

Broad positioning inevitably leads to feature compromise. When trying to satisfy diverse needs, you can’t optimise deeply for any specific use case without creating complexity for others. The result is often a bloated product that does many things adequately rather than a few things exceptionally.

Basecamp (previously 37signals) built their business on the opposite approach—deliberately limiting features to maintain focus on core functionality. As co-founder Jason Fried notes: “Most software has a tiny collection of features that most people use, and a whole bunch of features that hardly anyone uses. The latter just get in the way of the former.”

By focusing exclusively on the needs of small teams rather than trying to compete with enterprise solutions, Basecamp created a product that resonated deeply with their target audience precisely because of what it excluded, not despite these limitations.

3. The Expertise Penalty

When positioning broadly, you can’t demonstrate deep expertise in specific domains without appearing irrelevant to other segments. This creates a credibility gap where you seem knowledgeable about everything but expert in nothing.

ThoughtWorks, the technology consultancy, took the opposite approach by maintaining explicit focus on technical excellence in software development rather than expanding to general management consulting. This deliberate limitation allowed them to develop and demonstrate depth of expertise that generalist firms couldn’t match.

As former chief scientist Martin Fowler explains: “We’ve had countless opportunities to expand into broader consulting services. Each time, we’ve asked ourselves a simple question: would this make us better at solving complex technical problems? If the answer is no, we don’t do it—even when it means walking away from revenue.”

4. The Resource Penalty

Perhaps most damaging, broad positioning dilutes your limited resources across too many initiatives, audiences, and opportunities. This prevents the focused excellence that creates true differentiation.

When ustwo, the digital product studio, entered the market, they initially focused exclusively on digital product design rather than attempting to compete broadly against larger agencies. This concentration allowed them to develop distinctive capabilities that would have been impossible with dispersed focus.

As co-founder Matt Miller notes: “By saying ‘this is exactly what we do and nothing else,’ we could invest all our energy, talent, and resources into being exceptional at one thing rather than adequate at many.”

The Focus Selection Framework

If you accept that focused positioning creates stronger gravitational pull than broad appeal, the question becomes: which audience should you focus on? The Focus Selection Framework provides a systematic approach to identifying your optimal audience:

1. Essence Alignment

The foundation for audience selection begins with essence alignment—identifying which customer segments naturally resonate with your irreducible core purpose and approach:

Key Questions:

• Which audiences intuitively “get” what you’re about?
• Where do your fundamental values align with customer worldview?
• Which customers share your perspective on what matters most?
• Who appreciates your distinctive approach rather than just outcomes?

When Glossier founder Emily Weiss was developing her beauty brand, she began with a specific audience that aligned with her essence of community-driven beauty: millennial women with a specific aesthetic who valued authenticity over expertise. Rather than trying to compete broadly against established beauty giants, she focused intensely on this audience whose values aligned with her founder journey and company philosophy.

2. Value Concentration

The second dimension examines where your differentiation creates the greatest customer value—identifying segments that benefit most from your unique approach:

Key Questions:

• Which audiences gain the most from your distinctive attributes?
• Where do your capabilities solve problems most completely?
• Which segments value what you do differently from alternatives?
• Where can you create transformative rather than incremental impact?

When Pipedrive developed their sales CRM, they identified a specific value concentration in individual salespeople rather than sales managers or executives. While most competitors focused on reporting tools for management, Pipedrive designed specifically for daily sales pipeline management by the people actually selling. This intense focus on value for a specific audience created distinctive appeal despite competing in a crowded CRM market.

3. Connection Potential

The third dimension assesses where you can build meaningful community and advocacy, not just transactions:

Key Questions:

• Which audiences will actively champion your approach?
• Where do customers have strong connections with each other?
• Which segments share their experiences and recommendations?
• Where can you build belonging, not just satisfaction?

IDEO, the design consultancy, built its business by focusing on clients who valued design thinking methodology rather than competing broadly against traditional management consultancies. This audience not only purchased their services but became advocates who spread their approach throughout organisations and industries. As former CEO Tim Brown notes: “We look for clients who want to learn how we work, not just what we deliver.”

4. Economic Viability

The final dimension ensures your focused positioning creates sustainable business despite narrower appeal:

Key Questions:

• Is this focus economically viable as a core business?
• Does this segment have sufficient growth potential?
• Can you reach this audience efficiently with available resources?
• Will these customers pay a premium for your distinctive approach?

When TransferWise (now Wise) entered the financial services market, they focused specifically on international money transfers for individuals with multi-currency lives rather than attempting to compete broadly against banks across all services. This focus created viable economics despite its narrower scope, allowing them to build a multi-billion-dollar business through depth rather than breadth.

The Courage to Exclude

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of focused positioning isn’t identifying whom to serve but accepting whom to exclude. This requires genuine courage—the willingness to say “this isn’t for you” despite the temptation of additional revenue.

As Seth Godin observes: “Everyone is not your customer. If you try to appeal to the average person, you’ll disappear completely.”

This courage manifests in explicit statements of whom you don’t serve—not as rejection but as clarity that creates stronger appeal for your actual audience.

Consider how 37signals (makers of Basecamp) clearly states they don’t build enterprise features despite significant revenue potential: “Enterprise companies ask us to add features all the time… But our answer is no. Because those features would add complexity for everyone, and most people don’t need them.”

This explicit boundary doesn’t diminish their market position; it strengthens it by sending a powerful signal about their priorities and values. Their ideal customers don’t see this limitation as a weakness but as evidence that Basecamp truly understands their needs rather than trying to be all things to all people.

Similarly, when Rapha entered the cycling apparel market, they focused explicitly on premium cycling clothing for serious road cyclists rather than attempting to compete broadly against sportswear giants. This deliberate exclusion of casual cyclists and other athletes didn’t limit their growth; it fueled it by creating deep resonance with their target audience.

As founder Simon Mottram explains: “We’re not trying to dress everyone who rides a bike. We’re focusing intensely on a specific type of cyclist who values performance, heritage, and aesthetics in a particular way.”

Counter-Example: Nokia’s Unfocused Expansion

To understand the cost of unfocused positioning, consider Nokia’s dramatic fall from mobile phone leadership. At its peak, Nokia commanded over 50% of the global smartphone market with a seemingly unassailable position.

Their decline wasn’t primarily due to missing technology trends (though that played a role) but to increasingly unfocused positioning that tried to serve every market segment simultaneously. As competition intensified from both Apple in the premium segment and Asian manufacturers in the budget segment, Nokia attempted to maintain presence across the entire market spectrum rather than focusing where their essence could create most distinctive value.

Former Nokia executive Anssi Vanjoki reflects: “We tried to cover every price point in every market with every form factor. This breadth looked impressive on paper but prevented us from creating truly differentiated experiences for any specific customer segment.”

The result was a sprawling product lineup with dozens of models that created confusion rather than connection. As executive Jean-Louis Gassée observed at the time: “Nokia has 22 smartphone models—even they can’t explain the difference between them.”

This unfocused approach dispersed Nokia’s substantial resources across too many initiatives, prevented clear messaging about what the brand stood for, and ultimately led to products that served many audiences adequately while delighting none particularly well. Despite their scale and resources, they lost position to both Apple’s focused premium approach and Android manufacturers’ targeted segment strategies.

The Paradox of Growth Through Focus

The most counterintuitive aspect of focused positioning is that it often creates more sustainable growth than broad appeal attempts, despite seemingly limiting your market. This “growth through focus” paradox operates through several specific mechanisms:

1. Word-of-Mouth Amplification

When you create deep resonance with specific audiences, they become advocates who spread your message far more effectively than your own marketing ever could.

Mailchimp’s intense focus on small businesses and entrepreneurs didn’t limit their growth; it accelerated it by creating passionate customers who recommended the platform to others like themselves. As Ben Chestnut notes: “Our most powerful marketing has always been current customers telling potential customers, ‘This was built specifically for people like us.‘“

2. Category Leadership Advantage

Focused positioning often allows you to become the definitive leader in a specific space rather than a minor player in a broader category.

When Figma entered the design tool market, they focused specifically on collaborative design rather than attempting to compete broadly against established tools like Adobe’s Creative Suite. This focus allowed them to become the category leader in collaborative design—creating much stronger growth trajectory than if they had positioned as just another general-purpose design tool.

3. Premium Positioning Potential

Deep resonance with specific audiences typically enables premium pricing that more than compensates for narrower market appeal.

Studio Neat’s focus on “simple things” for a specific design-conscious audience allows them to command premium prices despite minimal marketing budget or scale. As co-founder Tom Gerhardt explains: “Our customers don’t compare us to mass-market alternatives because they understand we’re creating something fundamentally different for people with specific values.”

4. Resource Efficiency

Perhaps most importantly, focused positioning creates resource efficiency by allowing concentrated investment rather than dispersed efforts.

When ustwo chose to focus exclusively on digital product design rather than competing broadly against larger agencies, they created significant resource advantage. As Matt Miller explains: “Every pound we spent went toward being exceptional at one thing rather than adequate at many. This created much more impact per pound than our larger, more diversified competitors could achieve.”

From Breadth to Depth: The Transformation Process

For businesses currently pursuing broad positioning, the path to focused magnetism involves deliberate transformation rather than abrupt abandonment of existing customers. This transformation follows a predictable sequence:

1. Audience Analysis

Begin by systematically assessing your current customer base through the Focus Selection Framework—identifying where you already create the strongest resonance despite your broad positioning.

When TransferWise (now Wise) began this process, they discovered disproportionate resonance with specific segments: expatriates regularly sending money home, remote workers receiving international payments, small businesses with international suppliers, and individuals with multi-currency lives. This pattern revealed natural strength they hadn’t fully recognised or leveraged.

2. Essence Clarification

Use insights from audience analysis to refine your essence articulation, particularly aspects that create strongest connection with high-resonance segments.

Through their audience analysis, TransferWise discovered that financial fairness resonated more powerfully than technical innovation. This insight helped them refine their essence articulation from general “better transfers” to more specific “money without borders”—a clarification that strengthened both their identity and market position.

3. Graduated Focus

Rather than abruptly abandoning segments, implement graduated focus that progressively shifts resources and emphasis toward high-resonance audiences.

When Notion began this process, they didn’t immediately abandon any customers. Instead, they gradually increased focus on high-resonance segments (tech-savvy knowledge workers, design-oriented creative professionals) through tailored templates, examples, and community initiatives—creating stronger gravity with these audiences while maintaining service to others.

4. Natural Selection

As focused positioning strengthens, allow natural selection to occur where lower-resonance customers either adapt to your approach or migrate to alternatives better suited to their needs.

When Basecamp implemented this approach, some enterprise customers eventually migrated to more complex tools that better matched their needs—a healthy evolution that strengthened Basecamp’s position with their core audience rather than diluting it through compromise.

Be Something for Someone

The path to becoming the obvious choice in your market rarely comes through trying to appeal to everyone. It comes through mattering deeply to specific customers who share your values, appreciate your approach, and benefit most from your distinctive capabilities.

This doesn’t mean serving only tiny niches—many focused companies build substantial businesses. It means making deliberate choices about whom you serve best rather than attempting to be the universal option.

As Jason Fried from Basecamp puts it: “When you don’t know what you stand for, you’ll stand for anything. And when you stand for anything, you don’t stand out to anyone.”

The companies that create the strongest gravitational pull—from tiny studios like Studio Neat to billion-dollar businesses like Mailchimp—share this fundamental characteristic: they chose to be something specific for someone particular rather than something generic for everyone.

This courage to focus, to exclude, to specialise, to serve some audiences deeply rather than all audiences adequately—this is the foundation of positioning that matters. Not positioning that says “we can help anyone” but positioning that declares “we are uniquely perfect for people like you.”

The pursuit of everyone is the path to no one. The courage to be something for someone is the foundation of becoming the obvious choice.

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The Focus Selection Worksheet

1. Essence Alignment Analysis

For each potential audience segment, score (1-10):

• Worldview Alignment: How strongly do their fundamental values match yours?
• Approach Appreciation: How much do they value your distinctive methodology?
• Purpose Resonance: How deeply do they connect with your core purpose?
• Cultural Fit: How naturally do your organisation and this audience connect?
• Total Essence Alignment Score: ___ / 40

2. Value Concentration Assessment

For each potential audience segment, score (1-10):

• Problem Alignment: How perfectly does your solution match their specific needs?
• Alternative Comparison: How superior is your approach for this audience vs. competitors?
• Impact Potential: How transformative could your solution be for these customers?
• Frustration Resolution: How effectively do you solve their major pain points?
• Total Value Concentration Score: ___ / 40

3. Connection Potential Evaluation

For each potential audience segment, score (1-10):

• Advocacy Likelihood: How likely would they recommend you to others?
• Community Opportunity: How connected is this audience with each other?
• Engagement Potential: How deeply would they interact with your brand?
• Information Sharing: How actively do they share experiences and recommendations?
• Total Connection Potential Score: ___ / 40

4. Economic Viability Analysis

For each potential audience segment, score (1-10):

• Market Size: Is this segment large enough to support your business goals?
• Growth Trajectory: Is this segment stable or growing over time?
• Acquisition Efficiency: Can you reach this audience cost-effectively?
• Revenue Potential: Will they pay sufficiently for your distinctive value?
• Total Economic Viability Score: ___ / 40

5. Focus Decision

• Combined Score: ___ / 160
• Primary Focus Segment: _______________
• Key Essence Elements for This Audience: _______________
• Core Value Proposition for This Audience: _______________
• Deliberate Exclusions: _______________