𝗔 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗾𝘂𝗼𝘁𝗲

I attended an entertaining talk by Simon Pound put on by Soda Inc. Simon is a very eloquent gentleman; telling stories was clearly his happy place! He imparted a number of gems, but my favourite was his comment that 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲.

When people add to their offerings (moving away from simplicity), they do this because of our intuitive belief that more is better. More money, more fame, more muscles, more bedrooms. It also makes sense as the greater the number of offerings you have, the wider the needs you serve, and the more customers you can appeal to.

The flipside to this is you’re exposing yourself to more competition. And you’re spreading your resources more thinly. This means you reduce your chance to stand out in any one area and increase your chance of being average.

No one writes down the goal ‘become more average’ in their strategy. Yet their strategy will often detail new products or services to widen offerings - which increases their chance of achieving mediocrity.

It takes confidence to stay simple and resist the temptation to add. But here lies the opportunity to stand out. With all your resources focused on one thing your chances of standing out go up - because others’ lack the confidence to be simple have succumbed to the false logic of their 'add more' instinct.

If you had the confidence to be simple, what would you cut? And what would you double down on?

Is this a nice thought experiment? Or a call to action? You choose.

If it's the latter, talk to your customers; they’ll tell you where to focus.