About the session

The Paradox of Specificity – Start Narrow to Go Big

Start with specificity, not scale. Get exceptionally good at solving a narrow customer problem, learn which elements of that solution create real value and only then generalize when you have the evidence that it will scale.

Great products often being by being incredibly specific. They tackle a particular customer problem, workflow and value proposition. But as products gain traction, teams face a paradox. What made the product successful can being the very thing that limits its growth, while premature attempts to generalize can destroy the specificity that created value in the first place.

This talk shares the lessons from scaling an enterprise product and explores how to know what to keep specific, what to abstract and when you have earned the right to scale beyond the original problem.

What you will take away

• Start by solving a narrow customer problem exceptionally well rather than designing for scale too early.
• Learn which parts of a specific solution are actually creating value before abstracting them.
• Generalize only when there is evidence that the product has earned the right to scale.

About the speaker

About Karthik

Karthik is the Head of Product Management at Broadcom with over 20 years of experience of which 15+ years has been in product leadership. He has led products across observability and cloud infrastructure including the evolution of Wavefront into a modern, award winning observability platform. His work spans product strategy, pricing, growth and scaling enterprise products.