Product StrategyEmerging Pattern

Prune profitable products to refocus all energy on your strongest offering

Counterintuitively, cutting profitable products can strengthen your business. When attention is spread across multiple products, none gets the team's full creative energy. Pruning back to one product lets you invest everything in making it exceptional.

When to use

When your team feels diluted across multiple products and your flagship product accounts for the majority of revenue and growth.

Don't do this

Keeping every profitable product alive because it generates revenue, even when the maintenance burden prevents improving your core product.

2 Founders Who Did This

1
37signals / Basecampby David Heinemeier Hansson

In 2014, pruned all products except Basecamp: sold profitable Sortfolio ($200K/year), spun off Highrise as independent company, discontinued Campfire signups. Even though these products generated revenue, the team felt 'a bit scattered, a bit diluted.'

Result:Basecamp already generated 87% of revenue and 90% of growth. Refocusing 34 employees on one product enabled Basecamp 3 launch in 2015 and later HEY email in 2020 - both built with full team attention.
2
Fiscal.aiby Braden Dennis

Shut down Stratosphere ($1.5M ARR product) to focus entirely on FinChat after viral growth validated the larger opportunity. Merged both products under the FinChat name in November 2023.

Result:Freed resources to grow FinChat to $1M ARR quickly, then $2.5M ARR with 15% month-over-month growth, on track for $10M ARR
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