In 1997, Apple teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. When Steve Jobs returned, his first move wasn’t a flashy gadget or a marketing blitz. It was surgical subtraction. He axed 340 products overnight, reducing Apple’s sprawling lineup from 350 to a razor-sharp ten. The board recoiled. Wall Street raged. Four years later, the iPod launched, Apple’s stock skyrocketed 3,000%, and the path to a $3 trillion valuation was clear.

The Burden of Bloat

Most CEOs equate “more” with “better.” More SKUs, more features, more variants. In reality, each extra product is a millstone: it ties up capital in inventory, clutters your marketing message, overtaxes support teams, and paralyzes buyer choice. While you juggle thousands of offerings, your lean competitor with three knock-out best-sellers is printing money and building loyalty.

The Deletion Revolution

Trader Joe’s slashed its grocery aisles to 4,000 curated products, where typical supermarkets stock 50,000. The result? $1,750 per square foot in sales, double the industry average.
In-N-Out Burger has offered just four menu items since 1948, yet each store out-earns its McDonald’s neighbor.

Basecamp removed 80% of its features and froze its roadmap, focusing on core project-management tools. Today it boasts 3.5 million accounts and zero sales team.

Lego pared down 30% of its product lines in 2003. The payoff was stunning: near-bankruptcy to the world’s most valuable toy company.

Maldicore’s Own Pivot

We’ve lived this lesson ourselves. In 2021, Maldicore was a full-service IT consultancy boasting over twenty distinct offerings, from network integration to bespoke app development. Growth stalled, teams were stretched thin, and clients grew confused about our expertise. Over three months, we conducted our own Deletion Audit Framework, retiring 16 of 20 service lines and refocusing on two core advisory practices: digital transformation strategy and executive coaching. Within a year, our advisory engagements grew, our average contract size doubled, and we repositioned ourselves as high-value partners rather than catch-all vendors.

Soon after, we landed our biggest and possibly loudest contract to date and a comprehensive service partnership expanded into Sri Lanka. We now deliver end-to-end business advisory, strategic branding, automation design, and development only within those advisory project scopes, an offering few can match locally, infused with our signature island-honed “paradise” sensibility. This landmark engagement showcases how ruthless focus and the courage to delete can unlock opportunities in new markets.

Why Deletion Beats Addition

Adding more offerings is easy. Deleting requires courage and conviction. When you subtract products, you:

• Multiply Clarity. Buyers instantly understand your best solutions.
• Ease Decisions. Fewer options mean faster choices and fewer abandoned carts.
• Sharpen Focus. R&D and marketing resources concentrate on what truly moves the needle.

The Deletion Audit Framework

Ready to purge? Follow these five steps over the weekend and watch your margins and sanity soar:

1. The 80/20 Autopsy
   Identify the 20% of products driving 80% of your revenue. Everything else goes on trial.
2. The Complexity Tax
   Calculate the true cost per SKU, inventory, marketing dilution, decision-paralysis impact, and support burden. Axe any item yielding under 15% margin.
3. The Customer Confusion Test
   Time how long it takes to explain your entire lineup. Over 30 seconds? Start cutting.
4. The Focus Multiplier
   Imagine dedicating 10× the resources to your top five best-sellers. That’s your opportunity cost.
5. The Resurrection Clause
   Worried about customer uproar? Keep a “resurrection” list. Spoiler: once options vanish, few customers miss them.

Start the Deletion Revolution

Addition is lazy. Subtraction is strategy. This weekend, list every product and feature you offer. Circle those that would hurt if they died and slash everything else. It takes wisdom to shrink, but tomorrow’s market dominators won’t be those with the widest catalog. They’ll be those with the least, the offerings that matter most.

P.S. What’s one thing your company needs to delete? Drop it below and let’s ignite the deletion revolution.

The Maldicore Team