If I told you something was going to make you sleepy, would that be good or bad?
If you’re trying to get deep work done at 2PM, it’s terrible. You wouldn’t take it for free!
But if you’re someone who lies awake at midnight staring at the ceiling?
You’d gladly throw money at anything that helps you wind down.
People spend fortunes on all kinds of sleep-enhancing devices and pills!
Same product.
Different purpose, context, and desired outcome.
That alone decides whether something is valuable… or useless.
So the product (or service) you might be working on, or even your personal qualities -
There’s no “good” or “bad.”
There’s “good for this, terrible for that.”
Fit is everything.
The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Beauty standards themselves prove it.
Before skinny was aspirational, curves were the ideal some time ago. Now it’s “strong”, my personal favorite, because at least it aligns with health. Even sculpting your glutes with squats improves long-term heart health. Win-win.
Let's get to business.
Some business models thrive on your impulsiveness (hello, Amazon one-click). They need fast action, little friction.
Others rely on long-term thinking (your retirement planning and doing).
Different psychology. Different behaviors. Different tactics.
Right now I’m reading this brilliant book, “Real Progress: how to connect the dots of product Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery” by Tim Herbig, who’s coming on Change Wired, my podcast, soon. He writes about the thing most people intellectually know but rarely apply:
You cannot build something for everyone. You build for a very specific someone with a very specific need. Unless you want to be unremarkable.
Jobs. Pains. Gains.
Pick your customer.
Serve them deeply.
Or try to please everyone and become the “balanced energy drink” that wakes no one up and relaxes no one down. Completely forgettable, except for some devoted yogi who wants it all balanced, hey probably a market for that too!
One example from the book: a rideshare service choosing to design specifically for executives traveling between meetings in business-hub cities.
They need:
– reliable routes
– quiet, professional drivers, sharp-looking
– wifi
– a small workstation setup
– a car that fits their business image, something they will be proud to share with a client if needed
– speed and predictability
But if you were serving busy moms? Or tourists?
You’d optimize trunk space, child safety features, a friendly chatty driver, maybe even scenic routes.
Different customers.
Different needs.
Different strategy.
Different product, language, hiring, marketing, colors, down to the music playing in the car.
Which brings me to the question someone asked me today:
“How do you, as a leader, make a vision clear?”
You start with strategy.
The courage to DECIDE to say NO to very specific things.
No’s to features that don't optimize for your customer needs.
So, over to you, dear reader,
What exactly are you choosing to be? For whom?
And even more importantly, what are you refusing to be?
Decisions are hard.
That’s why most people avoid making real ones.
But you’re a leader. You don’t get to skip this part.
Make the call. DECIDE to make it clear.
