I spent some delightful hours over Christmas deeply immersed in the Steve Jobs biography. Not only was his life an amazing story but there are also an of abundance of wisdom nuggets throughout the book.
One that struck me in particular was the story of when Jobs returned to Apple after his years of involuntary exile. At that point in time Apple was on the ropes and the market was rapidly losing faith.
Jobs convened a product review meeting – Apple at that time had 10–15 different versions of the Mac on the market and even more in the pipeline. Jobs went to the whiteboard and drew a 2 x 2 matrix. On the one side he wrote home/professional on the other he wrote desktop/laptop. Jobs then announced: That is it – four products. A laptop for professional or home use and a desktop for professional or home use. Everything else is as from now abandoned/discontinued.
The lesson for us all of course is: focus. Decide what it is you want to do and do it well.
Trying to be all things to all people invariably results in being nothing to anybody.