This post was originally written in Italian by Paolo Gambardella. It has been translated by an AI agent and may contain inaccuracies.
The most common problem I see with my clients is that they often know too much. They listen to podcasts and take online courses, study competitors, gather feedback, analyse trends… and then they freeze.
Steve Jobs, in a famous 1997 interview, said that focus doesn’t mean saying yes to the most important things. It means saying no to hundreds of good ideas. Too much information can push you towards choices that are right, but not yours.
How I analyse the competition
When I analyse competitors for a client, I work in two columns:
- What interests me about this competitor? What are they doing that points in an interesting direction: vision, audience, priorities — in that order.
- What doesn’t interest me, and why? What are they doing that works, that the market accepts, that isn’t a mistake — but that simply isn’t right for me. Not for the audience I’m serving, not for the identity of the product I’m building.
It’s important to tell the difference between things that are too vague and things you can actually act on:
- “We want to make something accessible” is vague.
- “We will never build a system that requires an external guide to understand” is concrete, operational, and defensible.
The one thing to cut
In game design I often use a simple mental tool: find the one thing to cut. Almost always, it’s a good idea that someone has grown attached to. It’s not wrong in itself — it’s just wrong for this product, or at this moment.
The same logic applies to a strategy, a piece of communication, a roadmap.
Saying no to a good idea is the hardest part of the job. It requires knowing precisely what you’re trying to be, not just what you’d like to do.
And that clarity comes from deciding what to leave out.