Simplify to Amplify: The Spindrift Story

Source: Flickr

I recently listened to a particularly intriguing episode of Guy Raz's How I Built This podcast.  Raz interviewed serial entrepreneur Bill Creelman, founder and CEO of Spindrift - the sparkling water company.  I found one particular part of the Spindrift growth story quite compelling.  Creelman explains that the company had started to take off, and then he made the courageous and intelligent decision to exit one of the firm's two product lines.  

In the beginning, Spindrift sold both a sparkling water product made with real squeezed fruit, as well as a soda product (albeit one with less sugar than mainstream soda brands).   The interesting part of the story is that the soda product line was quite profitable, and it was generating millions in revenue for the company.   Yet, Creelman decided that that the brand positioning needed focus and clarity.  He called it a "simplify to amplify" strategy.   Creelman explains, 

Source: spindriftfresh.com

"That was a really important moment for us... we had a very low sugar soda, but even that, among our team, that was confusing. We had people who would say, you know, I don't drink soda. And we would say, well this isn't a soda... So, we made the hard decision to shut down about a $5 million business, super profitable, and just focus our resources on the sparkling water... The risk was for us that if we didn't stand for one single thing that we were going to go down the path of so many other businesses where you sort of try to do everything pretty well and nothing really, really great."

As I've written before on this blog, far too many companies try to be all things to all people.  They would never exit a profitable business, even if it meant a clearer competitive positioning that would be more sustainable in the long run.   Creelman made a smart move, sacrificing in the near term for the sake of a smarter strategy for competing in a confusing and highly competitive marketplace.