March 28, 2025

Platform Specialization - The Bad Parts

Yesterday, I described the pros of platform specialization. Today, I’ll talk about the cons.

The Cons of Platform Specialization

The downside of platform specialization is that the upside never lasts forever. In fact, the upside can be pretty short-lived.

Generally speaking, one of two things happens with to folks who get in early on a platform specialization:

1. Platform decline—The platform falls out of favor and is replaced by a new shiny object that all the cool kids are talking about. Demand drops as platform users go elsewhere, and your lead pipeline dries up.
2. Bandwagon effect—The platform is hugely successful and becomes a juggernaut. The word gets around that people like you are printing money, and every kid coming out of school jumps on the bandwagon. Before you know it, supply rises to meet or exceed demand, and your pricing power plummets.

The brutal part about both scenarios is that you are so busy doing client work that you usually don’t notice things changing until it’s well underway. You end up feeling like either 1. the last rat on a sinking ship, or 2. an over-priced dinosaur.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s message where I’ll talk about how platform specialists can decrease the odds of suffering either of these fates.

Yours,

—J

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