April 5, 2025

Re: Another Way To Pivot Out of a Platform Specialization

Fellow list member Caleb Ruth replied to a recent platform specialization message to share his experience executing a “half-pivot” from platform specialization to vertical specialization. (shared with permission):

Hey Jonathan,

There is another way to pivot away from platform specialization that I haven’t seen you mention. Early in my career I was initially a technology generalist – I ran cat5 cabling, set up PCs and Macs, and built databases and web front-ends for them. Then I got bored of the first two and specialized on the FileMaker platform. The third stage of my career was a pivot to focus exclusively on medical-related clients because I had a firm foothold with several solid clients in that space (while still leveraging the FileMaker platform). Now in the fourth stage I have pivoted again to providing data management solutions for global health research. Each was a stepping stone to the next.

To circle back to the idea of pivoting away from platform specialization, my path was leveraging the expertise I developed during my phase of platform specialization to niche down to a specific field.

Thanks!

—Caleb

Thanks to Caleb for sharing!

Yep, this is a perfect example of jumping ship without having to change what you actually do for clients.

IOW - It’s mostly a messaging change. You don’t need to start over from scratch with a new platform. Just keep using the old one but only for a specific subset of your past clients.

Yours,

—J