When you’re building and scaling a tech product, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to be everything to everyone. But what if the real power lies in being indispensable to just a few?

In this short but sharp episode of Wisdom From Wizards, I spoke with Talya Heller, founder of Down to a T, about a decision every CEO must face: Would you rather build a product that’s indispensable to a small group, or useful to a large one?

Talya’s answer was clear — and deeply insightful.

“I’ll take indispensable to a small group,” she said. “It creates faster feedback loops, tighter communities, and better insight into evolving needs.”

She’s speaking from experience. As someone who has marketed horizontal products, Talya knows the challenge of speaking to everyone — and how much more effective it is to double down on a well-defined audience.

Why CEOs Should Care

If you’re a CEO at a tech scaleup, here’s why this matters:

• Speed of learning: Serving a focused audience makes it easier to identify what’s working — and what’s not.
• Community building: Loyalty isn’t built on being generally helpful. It’s built on being irreplaceable.
• Strategic expansion: When you know your niche, adjacent use cases become clearer — and so does your roadmap.

As Talya put it, some brands today are winning not because of the product itself, but because of the community they’ve created around it.

And that’s a strategic moat you can’t copy overnight.

Wisdom From Wizards is brought to you by Caribou Strategic, helping tech scaleups stand out and succeed through positioning, messaging, go-to-market, and sales strategy.

📈 If you’re a CEO who refuses to plateau, join a Caribou Strategic Mastermind.