---
id: "concept-agency-anti-pattern"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["§ They Pursue Markets That Are Too Broad"]
tags: ["product-strategy", "positioning", "scalability"]
related: ["action-narrow-icp", "quote-feature-requests", "contrarian-niche-ambition"]
definition: "A failure mode where a product startup absorbs one-off customer requests to close deals, inadvertently transforming into an unscalable custom development agency."
sources: ["commercial"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-commercial"
originDay: 5
articleStem: "hbr-ext-21-founders-new-sales-playbook"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/06/startup-founders-need-a-new-sales-playbook"
sourceTitle: "Startup Founders Need a New Sales Playbook"
---
# The Agency Anti-Pattern

When startups pursue overly broad markets — often driven by investor pressure to build a large company quickly — they suffer from generic messaging and unclear differentiation. To compensate, when prospects request special features to make the product relevant to their specific needs, founders often say **yes**.

By expanding scope rather than sharpening focus, the startup absorbs one-off requests and begins creating custom products for individual clients. This destroys repeatability and transforms what should be a scalable product organization into a **custom development agency**.

True product-market fit requires *processing* feature requests to ensure they benefit the entire user base, rather than serving as bespoke solutions for single clients — see the founder testimony in [[quote-feature-requests]].

The countermeasure is to [[action-narrow-icp]] (one buyer type, one problem, one repeatable motion), which is also the **Niche** element of [[framework-sprint]]. The strategic case for starting narrow — contrary to VC pressure for a broad TAM — is developed in [[contrarian-niche-ambition]].