Do You Really Want to Be the next Kubernetes?

Segmenting your market on a super-specific niche can be extremely scary for both business owners and maintainers of open source projects. After all, you started this because you were going to be the next Kubernetes, right?

For the vast majority of projects, that might be a goal that inspires investors but it is not a solid go-to-market strategy. You have limited resources. You are not Google. If you try to be everything for everybody — or even if you try to be one specific thing for everybody — you will have no idea what to write on your website, how to structure your outbound sales initiatives or even what your product roadmap should look like beyond initial launch.

The world is also much bigger than most people think. How many deals do you need to close this year, this quarter, to meet your targets? For most B2B startups, we’re talking about 10-20 sales. Choose a very narrow niche, talk to the people in it very specifically and you’ll actually be more, not less, likely to hit your target.