Extreme focus is the only play against bigger players

As indie hackers and bootstrappers, typically, we are in direct or sometimes indirect competition with organizations that have vast resources. Every so often, their resources can be perceived as unlimited when compared with ours.

However, this is an illusion. Resources are never unlimited. There is always a limit to resources, especially to attention. There is also a limit to the amount of resources an organization can burn in a time frame, similar to our connection bandwidth.

These limits provide opportunities for underdogs and challengers.

Ordinarily the extreme focus requires an insight – a distinguishing understanding of the group of people you are trying to serve, what makes sense for them and what is the basis of competition for the solution to their problem. When you figure it out, either through research or testing, you can create leverage, a competitive advantage for a distinct group of people.

Sometimes called the “loose bricks” approach, this kind of focus helped many Japanese corporations to penetrate international markets in the '70s and '80s, thanks to Nobuo Taoka's thinking. Practically, this approach can help you secure a part of a niche, a segment, or a market – which can then provide a foothold to attack a bigger part of the market.

Let's take a look at different kinds of extreme foci.

Extreme Geographic Focus

This is mainly relevant if you are moving physical products or operating retail locations. Without making significant changes, it can also work for location-based services. But can be relatively easily used in SaaS products too. Overall, it is more about focusing your resources on serving a specific geographical area instead of trying to serve the whole world.

A great example is how Canon penetrated the Xerox-dominated UK photocopier market in the 1980s. When entering the UK photocopier market, Canon focused first on Scotland. By having a relatively bigger sales and support staff in Scotland, Canon secured a 40% market share. Then used their success there to focus on another geographical area – until they pushed into the London market and became the market leader in the UK.

Extreme Mind Space Focus

Mind space is a tricky subject as it mainly relates to brand positioning. It is mainly about placing your product in a mental compartment that is available and empty, or creating that mental compartment in your target market's mind. The first one is relatively easy, while the second one is much harder.

A good example of the first one is how Ferrero entered the Indian chocolate market in the mid-to-late-2000s. India is a price-sensitive country, and most of the confectionery brands competed in the cheaper and low-end segments. When Ferrero launched their premium brand Rocher in India, they focused on festival seasons during which consumers in India gift sweets – and what is better than a box of premium chocolates when you want to gift sweets.

The perfect example of the second type of mind space focus is Red Bull – just another soft drink, but none like the others. By changing the recipe of the soft drinks and using different packaging and pulling one of the best positioning plays in the history of marketing, Red Bull became the drink of the daredevil, penetrating the Coca-Cola- and Pepsi-dominated soft drink market.

Extreme Use Case Focus

Another option for extreme focus is the “job” focus or “use case” focus. Better deployed when you target a very specific underserved use case in a relatively well-served market or segment. The key point in this type of focus is to ensure your product offers the required functionality and the user experience complementing the exact use case you are serving.

A good example is worksheet.digital by our fellow indie Malte Hecht. When you think about it, their product is another web form builder but targeted and packaged specifically for a single use case, a single job of a target market.

Conclusion

Extreme focus on different formats could help you create a secure position where you can settle. This secure position then can be used as a beachhead to further penetrate connected niches or segments.

The matter is identifying the focus by which you can divide the market to conquer.