Hi! This is the Daily Overpass my name is
Eric and I make apps. Now today I want to
talk about "Why You Need To Specialize"
Okay, so it's been a while since I use the
green screen. I thought like, you know,
bring this thing back for a little bit. I
used to use a green screen every week
and, you know, some people didn't like it
some people did. So, you know, but I
thought I'd use it again today. So anyway,
like last week I finally booked my
trip to San Diego. So in the summer, I'm
going to take a couple weeks and go back
home to San Diego where I grew up. It's
where my mom still lives or where
my brother still lives. I'm really really
looking forward to it. And of course, as
you can imagine the reason I want to go
to San Diego, most of the thing I'm
looking most forward to is visiting
In and Out Burger. I so miss In and Out
Burger! I mean it's, you know, i love it
because it only focuses on a few
different things, right ? For those of you
who live in the States and have access
to like In and Out Burger and Wendy's
and Jack In The Box and Carl's Jr.,
treasure life. I just don't, don't take
life for granted, right? Because one day
those things might all be gone, right? So
but of course, you know, in England
we have, you know, we have McDonald's, we have
Burger King, we have KFC, we got some of
the, some of the big chains. But they're
not quite the same, right? Because
McDonald's will, like whereas they
started off with, like a core menu, they
went off to other things like you know
adding chicken sandwiches and all those
kinds of stuff. I worked in Mcdonald's for
years when I was a teenager, right? And if
you read, and I read Ray Kroc's
autobiography and it was course that
really good movie "The Founder" last year
which is about Ray Kroc. And it
was, it's really interesting. I'm really...
From a business point of view, I'm really
interested in that kind of stuff because
they talked about when the Mcdonalds
brothers, they got rid of everything on
the menu and just focused on the few
things that they were really really good
at, right? And I used to work at
McDonald's and, you know. I got this menu,
I found this menu that... It's a bit faded,
I don't know if he could read that but
this is... It's Mcdonald's Pizza which was
like a trial in... When I was 17, we
moved to Springfield, Massachusetts and I
worked at McDonald's and we had.. And at
that Mcdonald's, we had Mcdonald's Pizza.
And I'm sure you can imagine why they don't,
that never caught on. I mean, it was
like a trial. And I'm sure you can
imagine why that never caught on because
it was just so good,
that people just can't, you know, can't
handle it. Now obviously, it was
not that good. People weren't going to
McDonald's for pizza. So it was not part
of the core thing, right? With In and Out
Burger, you have just like just burgers,
shakes and fries and I just.. I just love
it. So, and drinks whatever. So, now in
England, we have like chip shops. So we'll
have like, you know, like in Wantage, like
within a short distance from this office,
there's like, you know, two different chip
shops. There's another one a short drive
away. And they're all, they're all kind of
the same, you know. They're local, they'll do
fish and chips but then I'll also do
like, you know, pies and, you know, like
burgers and hot dogs and sausages and
ribs. And all of it is very bland and very
bleh, right? And I go to the one
that's closest to my house because
they're all kind of, kind of the same, you
know. And if that one's close or if it's
too busy then I'll go to the other one.
There's no brand loyalty
there, right? So you might... So why am I
even talking about this? You might think
I've gone a bit crazy. Now, In and Out
Burger. I love In and Out Burger because
they specialize in one menu. The menu is
always the same and they don't do
anything else. Now, every day, once or
twice a day, sometimes even more, I get an
email from an IT company or software
company from anywhere in the world. A lot
of them go to my spam. I don't even see
them. And it will say like "Hi Eric!" or, you
know, we're just "Hi!" or you
know, "Dear, you know, company owner" or
something like that. And they'll say "We
are a software company from India" or
Belarus or, you know, Romania or wherever.
And then they'll say "We specialize in..."
and then there'll be a list of
technology. "We specialize in PHP, C-sharp,
SharePoint, Salesforce, Ruby, mobility apps,
you know, Android, iPhone. All in a list,
like 20 languages, you know, between 10
and 20 languages, right? And what I think
when I see those is I think, obviously,
your definition of specialized is
different than my definition of
specialized, right? And then the rest
of the email, I don't know what it says
because I usually never go. Sometimes,
they'll say like "We can save you, you know,
sixty percent off IT costs" which I never
understand how, you know, how do they know that. They
don't know what I spend on IT costs.
They probably just looked at some
industry standard and said "Oh, well we
could charge less than that", right? So
it's always, it's always really, really
done. And they're all the same. If I click
on the link and go look at the company
website, it's the same one. There's like,
the home page that will have a stock
image of the stock image. I don't know
why this one is so popular. It's the
gray-haired man with the glasses in the
business suit holding a clipboard. I
don't know why this is like everybody's
favorite stock image, right? And then
there will be like logos of PHP, C-sharp,
like the official logos of the different
technologies. And then and, you know, call
us, you know, link or whatever. I don't
know how well these work but I can tell
you they never work with me, right? I am a
big believer in specialization. One of
the reasons why with Overpass we
don't say we do, you know, we do apps and
we do websites and we do you know this
and that, no. The other thing is because
we, you know, it, we need to be specialists
in what we do. We could charge more if
we're specialists. So you either have
specialists or generalists. Now imagine
if you're like really into say bicycles
like not bicycles, you're into biking,
right? You're like a bike enthusiast. You
cycle for miles, whatever. You have a
lycra and everything. If you need new
bike parts, if you need something new for
your bike, you're not going to go to
Walmart, you're going to go to a
specialist bike shop. And you're going to
pay more for it because you know it's
better quality. If you don't really care
about biking and you just need something
to get around then, yeah, you'll go to,
you'll go to Walmart. And you'll tell, you
know, and then, you know, you look at the
bikes they have and, you know, you look at
the one that's, you know, maybe the
cheapest or maybe, you know, the cheapest
one you could afford or whatever like
that. So it's a different class of
bike shopper that goes to Walmart
because they're they're generalists,
right? So, you know, if I was going to go
to a software company that had, you know,
we specialize... we specialize in
everything. By the way, you can't
specialize in everything because it's
not special that you can't special... you
know, you can't be a specialist in
everything. Even if you hire people or
specialist and everything, your
credibility as a company is not that, you
know, you want to go to them. Like
if my children were sick and, you know,
and money was no object,
because, you know, it's life or death.
I'm not going to take into a general
practitioner. I'm going to take, unless I
don't know what it is, right? If I know
that it's their leg or whatever, I would
want to go to a leg specialist. I'm sure
there's a name for that, right? And you know, or,
you know, or that. So for those of you are
thinking about starting up software
companies, I would say to... As much as you
have like a lot of different
technologies, a lot of different
experience and you think I'm going to
cast the net wide. I would like to think
that you could do a lot better and get a
lot better clientele by specializing in
one thing. When people call me up and say
"Hey can you guys do websites too?" you know,
sometimes i'll say, sometimes i'll say no.
Of course I can do website. I've done
websites for years but that's not the
focus of the company, right? If we just
start saying "We could do everything". Like
if I said "Hi! My name is Eric. I make apps
and websites and I do a little bit of
sharepoint and I do a little bit of
Salesforce and I do a little bit of PHP
then that, that's not a very
tight marketing message. I there... Nobody
would trust me as an app developer if I
say "I'm just kind of a generalist. I just
kind of do everything". Now if you don't
know what you want, maybe a general this
is what you want. Like if I say... you know.
If I need some plumbing done in my
house say like, yeah. And I know that I
need a plumber, I'm not going to go
to a builder and just say "Hey do you
also do plumbing?" right? Yeah I'm going to
say, you know ,unless that's the only
person available. I don't want to go for
a plumber, right? And unless money
is really an issue. Like I need to go for
the cheapest one because I just can't
afford it. And that's, you know, and then I
might go for a general one because they
might charge less than if I go to, you
know, Dr. plumber, specialist in plumbing,
because he, you know, he obviously looks
like it's gonna be more expensive. But
he's also going to look like what he
knows what he's doing. So for those of
you are thinking about starting up a
software business, and this is the point
of this specialization versus
generalization. If you're going to start
a software business, you're going to want...
you might want any client. Any client
who will pay you, right? Even if they're
looking for the cheapest developer on
the market because you could go the
cheapest. It's not really... It's not really
the type of client you want to be
looking for. You want to be looking for
the client that, that is looking for the
best. So in order to be the best that one
thing, you have to specialize in one
thing. You cannot be a specialist in
everything, right? When I look at these
software companies that send these
emails that say we do every
thing, I think of the same thing when I
go to the chip shop and they've got a
board that says "We make everything". We
make everything you could possibly want
but all of it is mediocre and we don't
specialize in one thing. Anyway so that's
it for today. I hope it's been
helpful. I hope it makes sense. Sorry to
go on so much about In and Out Burger.
But for those of you have access,
treasure life. Don't give up, right?
And that's it. I will talk to you guys on Monday.