Early in my adult life I thought it was clever to answer the question “What do you do?” with “What do you need done?”

But pigeonholing isn’t pejorative, neither in your career nor your startup.

Focus, after all, is just pigeonholing with better branding. And founders are constantly (and rightly) told to focus. Yet for all their ruthless prioritization, there’s one place that laser vision often goes blurry: their website.

Take a look at yours now. Is it crisp, specific, and clearly targeted at your most important audience? Or is it a vague Rorschach test of messaging, a splatter of language presented in the hope that someone, anyone—maybe everyone!—will see themselves in it?

The Focus Paradox

Ask a founder who their ideal first customer is, and they usually have a tight answer. But when it comes time to sell to that group, focus feels great only until it risks scaring off business.

The potential for missed sales isn’t the only fear that causes startups to retreat to the oatmeal comfort of toothless messaging. I hear these three objections all the time:

• “What if we’ve misidentified our core customer?”

• “Won’t our investors think we’re thinking too small?”

• “We want to be big someday—we don’t want to scare anyone off now.”

Case in Point

I recently worked with a startup that built an app to track online orders and returns. It was originally aimed at busy consumers. But small business owners turned out to be the real power users.

Great pivot—but instead of updating their messaging to focus on those business users, they kept the language vague, just in case a few busy moms stumbled across the site.

I see this pattern constantly in deep tech and life sciences startups too. Afraid to close any doors, they default to simply describing the tech—hoping someone will “get it” and connect the dots.

Spoiler: most people don’t. Trying to be everyone’s friend means selling to no one.

You Can Be Focused and Flexible

The tension between focus and flexibility is real. I’ve been a founder. I’ve pivoted. I know it’s hard to turn down a potential sale.

The key to finessing this conundrum is to prioritize your messaging. Build your narrative around your primary audience while leaving the door open for others.

Start with the AIM framework:

• Audience: Who do you most need to reach right now?

• Intent: What do you want them to do?

• Message: Now—and only now—craft your message.

Work backwards from your 6–12 month business goals. Need pilot partners? Then the moment those partners land on your website they should feel like the heavens opened and their prayers were answered.

Take a look at your website as if you were that dream customer:

• Does it speak directly to your pain points?

• Does it guide you toward the action you want (eg purchase, meet with the sales team, sign up for the waiting list)?

• Does anything on the page make you second-guess whether this company is for you?

Dial that in. Then—and only then—broaden your aperture.

Want to reach other verticals? Give them a call-out box or send them to a dedicated page. Just don’t confuse or distract your core audience.

Bezos Did It, So Can You

Remember: no one cares if you pivot. Amazon started as a bookstore—not because Bezos only wanted to sell books, but because he knew he had to win book buyers first.

The vision was always bigger. But the messaging at the start was clear and narrow.

I’m working now with an agtech startup that needs three audiences: farmers, fertilizer companies, and equipment manufacturers. But not all at once.

Step one? Field trials with farmers. At first the messaging will be 100% farmer-focused. Once trials are complete, we’ll shift to fertilizer companies, then to tractor manufacturers. There’s no problem to changing the messaging as the company reaches each milestone. To paraphrase MasterCard: Websites are cheap. Clarity is priceless.

Your Turn

Go look at your website. Does it speak—clearly and powerfully—to the audience most important to you today? If not, let’s talk about a tune-up.