How Complexity Is Costing You, And What To Do About It
I'm still obsessing about simplicity, clarity, and focus. And here's why you should too.
As far as I am aware, entrepreneurs don’t wake up and decide, “I’m going to make my business harder today.” Yet complexity creeps in like rust. A new service here, a custom client request there, another “yes” to keep the pipeline happy. Before you know it, your company has a Frankenstein product suite, your team is stretched thin, and you’re juggling more balls than Cirque du Soleil.
The problem is simple: more with more is not a strategy. It’s a slow march into mediocrity. Complexity eats margins, exhausts founders, and muddies what made you distinctive in the first place.
The 80/20 Law (on Steroids)
Richard Koch popularized the 80/20 principle — that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. But take it further: 4% of your actions often drive 64% of your outcomes. Drill down again, and 1% can deliver 50% of your results
Translation: most of what you’re doing is noise. A tiny fraction of clients, campaigns, and offers generate the bulk of your profit. Everything else is stress disguised as opportunity.
How Complexity Shows Up
• Creative agencies say yes to every brief: strategy, social, PR, video, brand, digital, events. They end up mediocre at all, masters of none.
• Design studios expand their service list until they’re competing with Fiverr at the low end and global agencies at the high end.
• Consultants build custom solutions for every client, creating a business model that’s essentially bespoke labor.
• Wellness or SaaS founders chase features instead of doubling down on the one thing customers actually buy.
The result? Bloated operations, tired teams, and founders stuck in reactive mode. Growth stalls because complexity has silently raised your cost structure and lowered your distinctiveness.
Why Entrepreneurs Burn Out
Complexity doesn’t just tank profits — it torpedoes energy. Every new service, client segment, or “bolt-on” offering means another process, another tool, another mental tab open in your head. This is why founders feel constantly fatigued, even when revenue is growing. They’re scaling chaos, not profit.
The Five Levers That Matter
The good news? You can fight back by applying 80/20 discipline across five levers:
Segments — focus on the markets that actually produce profit.
Offers — package only the highest-value problems you solve.
Acquisition — double down on the marketing and sales moves that truly generate clients.
Delivery — simplify and productize how you deliver, so every project doesn’t reinvent the wheel.
People — build around A-players and fractional roles, not bloated payrolls.
Apply 80/20 thinking to each, and you cut through noise fast.
In the video below, I talk about how you can gain massively in just one of the five areas above. Do all five, and expect exponential results.
The Solution: Ruthless 80/20
Start with an 80/20 analysis. Look at:
• Which markets deliver the highest margins?
• Which clients cause the least headaches (and pay the best)?
• Which services actually move the profit needle?
Then cut, prune, and focus. Reduce offerings to the few that drive the majority of revenue. Double down on the segments that actually love and pay you. Complexity drops, profits rise, and suddenly the business feels like it’s serving you again.
The Plays
• Run an 80/20 audit of your clients and offerings today — kill the bottom feeders.
• Stop customizing everything. Productize your services around what works.
• Treat “no” as a profit strategy.
• Build a growth plan around high-margin, high-love customers — not every customer.
• Remember: simplicity scales. Complexity doesn’t.
My Take
This is the core of what I do at The Simple Company, now part of the Original Minds group. I help founders stop chasing “more” and start chasing better. We use an AI-powered diagnostic tool to pinpoint where 80/20 (or 4/64, or 1/50) is hiding in your business. The goal: design a company that delivers above-industry profits before you try to grow. Because scaling a broken model doesn’t fix it — it just makes the problems bigger.
🎯 Want help simplifying, creating clarity, finding focus, and growing profits?
Check out Original Minds Mentor
I’ll work with you to do exactly what I described. It will help you return to your most profitable, happy core. With a profitable core, you can scale up, without losing focus and running a complex business.
