Choosing a Target Vertical Market Too Early

I am a fan of customer development, which is researching clients long before ever making a product or selling a service.

Yet, for most agencies, it's actually better to avoid being over-choosy with who you serve in the early days.

Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, advises early-stage startups to "Do things that don't scale."

He means starting by doing a lot of different things for a lot of different people (as a generalist).

Doing this helps you find signal in the market: The intersection between what you're good at and what the market needs.

In fact, an important part of launching and growing a new agency is learning what you're uniquely good at and who can benefit the most.

This learning process includes saying yes all the time to businesses that may not initially seem like a perfect fit.

What was once a tentative yes could eventually become your best-fit client profile down the road. 

Yet, there is no reliable way of knowing this unless you say yes.

CQ