What kind of product do you want to be?

Do you want to be the best also-ran, or do you want to be best-in-class? The effort and energy are very different for each category.

Best-in-class isn’t always the best lifestyle choice. And best also-ran isn’t necessarily a bad thing (it’s far more fulfilling than “mediocre among a field of options”, especially if you have scale).

There’s no science to any of these outcomes. But there are guidelines! More on those later.