The 10-item rule: why singular focus wins crowded markets

When ETBrandEquity brought marketing strategist Laura Ries and Jumbo King managing director Dheeraj Gupta into the same conversation, one idea cut through everything else: the brands that endure are the ones that refuse to be everything to everyone.

The discussion, with Prasad Sangameshwaran, centred on a noisy marketplace where attention is fragmenting and consumers face almost endless substitutes. Instead of chasing every new category, Ries and Gupta argued for doubling down on a sharp, singular focus.

The 10-item proof in a family menu

Gupta’s clearest example came from his own backstory. He said an 80/20 look at his family’s traditional restaurant menu showed that just 10 items generated 80% of revenue, while the menu carried about 150 items. Cutting the rest was not a sacrifice of ambition; it was the unlock.

Ries framed the same idea in positioning terms: brands win by owning a single word or concept in the customer’s mind. As she put it, “Singular focus is the single most important way to cut through the noise.”

Why focus reads as quality

Consumers, Gupta argued, are not the ones getting bored. They have plenty of choices. Brand owners get bored, lose patience, and start adding line extensions, discounts, and sub-brands. Ries said the category matters more than the brand: Kodak remained iconic but struggled when the film photography category shrank.

The two offered a portfolio view too:

• Procter & Gamble does not rely on one mega-brand; it owns around 20 billion-dollar brands, each a focused specialist in its own category.
• Red Bull took a decade to reach $100 million in revenue before accelerating into a global, multi-billion-dollar business.
• Domino’s succeeded in India on a clear, focused concept: home-delivered pizza, despite the market never having ordered pizza home before.

Managing investors and the long game

A recurring tension in the conversation was investor impatience. Gupta admitted he has been called slow or boring in board meetings. Ries said founders should teach investors marketing history: focus drives sustainable value over time, while rebadged generic products and constant couponing train customers to wait for a sale and erode brand equity.

The practical path is not a giant launch budget. Ries suggested starting in one city, using PR, and letting the brand take root before scaling. Gupta said being too early is a product-market fit problem, not an excuse to launch five sub-brands.

For Indian founders, the next decade could be interesting. Gupta pointed to Saina Nehwal’s influence on Indian badminton as a confidence example: one focused Indian consumer brand winning a global category may open the door for many others.

Source: ETBrandEquity.com