Are you better off specializing in one thing or doing a little bit of everything?

You can be a "horizontal" person.

They specialize in a subset of technologies and use them to solve different problems across industries.

For example, you learn HTML, JavaScript, and CSS and start building websites.

You can be a "vertical" person.

They specialize in solving problems in a particular domain.

For example, you focus on bicycle manufacturers, and you do development, advertising, marketing, and whatever is necessary.

Both approaches have a lot of advantages. They also have problems.

It's hard to stand out if you go "horizontal." There's a lot of competition.

It's hard to scale a "vertical" model. You can't do everything all the time.

I prefer a combination of both, slightly favoring a vertical model:

My domain is the productization of Computer Vision solutions.

I primarily focus on @awscloud, Python, and TensorFlow.

As you can tell, today, this is a very niche market. I don't want to do everything for everyone. Instead, I zero-in the area where I know I can have the most considerable impact.

Some people have told me that they are afraid of niching down because they would lose opportunities.

I feel the opposite. I do not need 100 opportunities at the same time; I just need one.

And because I'm a specialist, I don't need to compete in costs.

I know people that do very well with either choice. I don't think there's a right or wrong approach here.

You should find your place in the market.

But if you ask me, I'd recommend finding your niche.