I like the ‘try and do everything’ model. Great companies are often built on a resistance to narrow their scope. Google never set out to “only search travel websites”, Microsoft never confined its mission to “we only sell operating systems” and even Facebook resisted the strategy of a college-only social network. Just this past week I’ve had startups tell me “I want to focus on all media”, “My clients are all small businesses”, “we provide all types of business consulting” and “we can raise funds for any type of venture”. However, I generally do not recommend the “do everything’ model.

Google did one thing well- indexing the internet via pagerank. Microsoft built its leverage off of operating systems inside IBM computers. Facebook out-competed Friendster and Myspace by focusing on colleges. Then they grew into conglomerates with diverse footprints. Take midVentures. Back on day one, I wanted to be a web development shop, a consultant, an incubator, an event planner, and a venture capital firm. Each customer will ask you for different products and services- do not give every customer what they ask for. Focus on the one thing you do well.

Entrepreneurs always veer towards the ‘Do Everything’ model; because the entrepreneur is at heart either a visionary or a salesman. Visionaries want to change the world; requiring them to do everything better. Salesmen want to sell a customer whatever they ask for- requiring the salesman to deliver on any request. But there’s a difference between ‘wearing a lot of hats’ where the entrepreneur is the lawyer, the accountant, the HR, the salesman, the developer, and the marketer - and ‘trying to do everything’ where the entrepreneur is practically running different companies for each customer set. I’ve never seen a company start with a ‘do everything’ model and succeed, unless the ‘do everything’ model was simply a litmus test for finding opportunities.

Doing everything works well for diversifying personal skills; I have a friend who’s a yoga and kick boxing instructor, fluent in german and japanese, a concert pianist, pre-med, art history degree, anthropology degree, classics degree, a painter, and future doctors without borders member. Best of luck to her. Doing everything also works well for conglomerates, where you have an economy of scale via vertical or horizontal integration. Doing everything does not work well for the early growth stage of a startup.