My mother has a routine. Every morning after she wakes up, she walks to the kitchen, and opens the cupboard above her stove. She takes out her radio and switches it on for the first program - Tamil devotional music. She sets it on the counter, and starts the day.
This has been her morning regime for years, though only lately have I come to realise how the radio is a connection to so many things for my parents. To cricket commentary when TVs had not yet arrived, to news broadcasts of the oh-so-happening 90s that crackled into Indian living rooms, and most importantly - to the era of Radio Ceylon, Sri Lanka’s tremendously popular radio station, listening to which they became adults.
But it’s her radio I want to talk about.
It’s a black Philips Tiger. It’s a simple, hardy device: It runs on those large torchlight batteries (remember those?), has a tuner, and a volume button that also functions as the on/off switch. That’s it. And it does nothing else. It’s a radio, that’s all it is. It can’t double up as anything. It does its job, and when my mother leaves for work, it goes back to the cupboard above the stove.
It does one thing, and does it well.
I love grey tee shirts. I own a bunch and keep buying more, much to the lady’s annoyance at the lack of colours in my wardrobe.
And a brand I’ve become a fan of is Pune based March Tee.
I buy almost every new shirt they bring out, and am constantly looking to see if they are making something new.
Why, though? Are they the first Indian e-commerce company that sells tee shirts? No. There are so very many.
But they are the only one I came across who sell only tee shirts. They are high quality, appeal to my sense of simple, comfortable style, and do not purport to be anything else. At all.
They do one thing, and they do it well.
In my early days at Freshworks, I was surrounded by hugely talented and experienced professionals. I’ve said this before: That early team was kickass.
There was only one weak link: Me.
The only way to gain respect from that team and actually make an impact in those days was for me to be the go-to person for something. Luckily, I could write.
So I did, and with time, I became the person everyone turned to when they wanted copy, or when they wanted feature documentation, or when they wanted to name something in the product.
Did that mean I was not good at other things? No. As I grew in my career, I became better at other things too, but this one skill was what got me inside, gave me the wedge to grow from.
I think there’s something to be said for this idea, of doing one thing well. And I don’t mean it just in the context of careers. Even in products, there is a disproportionate advantage in being really good at solving one really important problem. Positioning becomes easier, scale becomes simpler, and your brand can build recall, repetition, and word of mouth.
I’m sure that if that radio of hers stops working for some reason, my mother will go and buy another of the same. When I feel I need one more grey tee shirt, I know where to go. When one of the old Freshworks crowd need something important written, they know who to call.
So there. You can do everything you want to, but remember that if you want to be remembered, do one thing well.