Deep & Wide
How to have further control in your businesses.
Hey team, thanks for the grace this week in putting this out late. I have family in town from Montana 🏔.
I want to share a few ideas around the concept of going deep or wide in your business.
You’ll often hear people say:
Go deep. Not wide
Meh. I think there’s some wisdom in that but it’s entirely situational.
The problem:
People jump from thing to another. Industry to industry.
One day they will be in real estate, the next day amazon, ecomm etc…
With this, you’ll lose almost all momentum in one thing.
This isn’t rocket science. You all probably know that.
So let’s move on to what I want to discuss.
Deep Niche. Wide opportunity
I want you to think Amazon for a minute.
1994: Amazon is founded.
1999: Amazon begins offering music and video sales.
2000: Amazon Marketplace opens to third-party sellers.
2002: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is launched.
2005: Amazon Prime subscription service is launched.
2006: Amazon Kindle is launched.
2007: Amazon Fresh and Amazon Music are launched.
2008: Amazon acquires Audible.
2009: Amazon acquires Zappos.
2011: Amazon Instant Video and Amazon Appstore are launched.
2014: Amazon launches Alexa and the Kindle Fire.
2017: Amazon acquires Whole Foods.
2018: Amazon launches Amazon Go.
2023: Amazon launches Amazon Bedrock.
The list goes on.
These are all going WIDE in a DEEP niche.
Their Niche has the opportunity to expand and add parallels. Their same existing audience will purchase and utilize the other offerings that they have because they are in the same niche.
Someone ordering on amazon for Tupperware also probably buys other stuff.
So it’s a convenience thing.
An example of what I do.
Black Gold Trading:
Indicators
Manual trading coaching
Trade journaling
Havilah Banking
VPS
Automations
Automation Software
Hedge Fund
Fund of a Fund offering
This is all an example of parallels within the same niche.
My same client who needs X may also need Y and Z.
A question that changed my life early on was this:
Where else does your customer spend money?
The idea here is if they like you, support you and have to go elsewhere for something…you can probably provide it for them and not need for them to go elsewhere. If you can provide similar pricing and similar quality/value they will most likely utilize you instead of logging out.
“Not every Niche has this”
Sure, not every niche has this but most do….
Dealership… insurance, warranty, oil changes and service, hats, floor mats, tires, etc….
Book Store… books, journals, pens, paper, coffee, subscriptions, boardgames, book clubs, birthday cards, toys.
Can you imagine a book store that only sold books?
If you think about it, you will struggle to find a niche that doesn’t have at least 10 parallels .
“You should just do one thing”.
Idk, i think this is a really hard approach to business.
Again, very few companies do this.
I think you should master your main thing before adding parallels. I think you should create a good product. I think you should stress test that product extensively.
You add when it makes sense.
That timeline may be different for everyone.
Ways of adding parallels:
This one is simple. You have three paths.
Build
Buy
Both
In the beginning you will probably build more than buy simply due to cashflow. When you can BUY it goes quicker and easier.
I’m in the buying stage with Black Gold.
Acquiring other companies.
Acquiring other opportunities.
Buying and shopping for a group of people.
Seriously think about it like shopping for your family.
What do they like? What do they need.
Hope this got the creative juices flowing for you.
As always, let me know if you have questions.