Founders are naturally resistant to narrowing their market.
Not because they don't understand focus.
Because narrowing feels like giving something up.
If your product can be used by ecommerce companies, SaaS startups, agencies, retailers and financial services companies, choosing only one feels unnecessarily restrictive.
Why exclude potential customers?
Why tell investors the market is smaller?
Why build a company around one narrow use case when the product could eventually serve thousands?
The instinct makes sense.
The mistake is confusing where your company can eventually go with where it should start.
Your total market and your starting market are two completely different things.
A startup can have an enormous long-term opportunity while deliberately starting with a very small group of customers.
In many cases, that is exactly how you earn the right to attack the larger market.
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