The market was already telling us

The biggest mistake we made at Perch wasn’t choosing the wrong market. It was refusing to choose one at all.

Early on at Perch, we chased six markets simultaneously. Pro sports. College athletics. High school. Military. Commercial gyms. Home fitness.

We called it diversification. It was actually fear.

Each market had a different buyer, a different value prop, a different sales motion. Our sales team was context-switching constantly. Marketing had no single customer to speak to. The product team was building for everyone, which meant they were really building for no one.

And the data was already telling us. Commercial gyms churned at a materially higher rate than our sports customers. The value prop just didn't stick the same way. Financial pressures in commercial gym businesses are different. Procurement is a maze for military customers and budgets could be cut at any time.

We tracked the churn and usage. We saw the numbers. We kept chasing anyway. I told myself it was about growth, future market exploration, and keeping our options open. It’s early, I thought. These markets will get better. They’ll bear fruit eventually.

The truth was simpler: I was too scared to pick one market and risk being wrong.

Then survival became the mission. We decided to get profitable. The team contracted. Growth at all costs was no longer an option. We had to pick. We picked sports.

When inbound commercial gym deals kept coming. Real revenue. We said no.

And then something shifted. The sales team had one pitch to sharpen. Marketing had one customer to speak to. The product team knew exactly who they were building for. Focus compounded in ways I hadn't anticipated. Growth accelerated. Team morale improved.

I am not the only one. This is a constant thing I see. I was recently listening to Kareem Amin, co-founder and CEO of Clay, describe this exact trap on the Invest Like The Best podcast. He'd talked to a YC founder whose company served both sales teams and recruiting teams. Kareem told him: "You have to pick one. This is where you're actually providing value, in picking, and actually committing yourself to serving some group of people in some specific way." His point is that the market rewards risk taking. It awards commitment.

You may pick wrong. But the only way to make a real impact on someone is to actually choose them.