Your portfolio should not dictate your positioning

Portfolio is unique to freelancers or service firms. B2B SaaS, for example, have case studies, not a portfolio. The primary difference between case studies and portfolio tends to be that a collection of case studies have to make a "case"; for example, a lead generation agency can have several case studies all pointing to the agency's ability to deliver leads. A portfolio, on the other hand, is a statement of "ability", i.e., I can do things.

Of course, the nomenclature gets abused. Companies that have only a portfolio can present their portfolio items as "case studies" too, it's just words after all. But if you treat it as just words, then they function as just words: they'll do nothing.

You need the discipline to internally clarify what is it that you really have. Is your "past experience" making an argument about a certain outcome that you can deliver or is it just saying that you can do more of all of the things that you've done?

It should be clear now that companies that have figured out their "positioning" (whatever that means) tend to have case studies whereas companies that are still loitering about (is slander allowed? I guess not) tend to have a ... portfolio.

What not to do

Consider a dev shop for example. Take their "portfolio", one item is tagged Mobile Development, another is Fintech + Mobile Development, yet another is Web Development, and somewhere in between is a Data Science project. One could call each individually a case study but the company as a whole is making dozens of "cases"; and a case is made by its evidence, yet here the evidence for each case is singular. Case closed.

Companies like the above have recently come to the realisation that there's something fundamentally wrong with their business. AI had shown them a mirror (I hope). They can't quite put a finger on it; most have come to the conclusion that the problem is with the fact that they are just doing "Services", therefore the way out is to do "Products".

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I say.

Software has no value of its own

A farmer delivers food. A farmer makes no pretension to how well he can use the tractor for tomorrow there will be a better vehicle for it. His only job is to maximize the yield of his land. He is not married to his plough or to his brand of urea. The case he makes is his yield every year. He does not do a portfolio of skillsets. If tomorrow there come flying cars that help him irrigate the land faster, he is all the happier for it.

Now this analogy can be mistaken. You may say, "But AI helps me deliver software faster!", and you think your job was to deliver software. It'll be the equivalent of saying that the reason we eat food is so that we can defecate more. No, the food is the end product, and that's why any improvement in the means of production is welcome; in software's case, the end product is never the software itself. It is the business value, however that may be defined. If every software you produce delivers a different value, it is like a farmer who ploughs his land for crop one year, then holds grand banquets on it the next, then rents it out to hooligans the next, and so on.

Software is an intersectional field, it has no value of its own. But that is a topic for another day.

The art of positioning

The art of positioning for a new business is in figuring out who you want to serve and how. The art of positioning for an existing business that has served several customer profiles in myriad ways is a lot more complicated.

I'll go with the dev shop example above. How do you suggest this dev shop "niche down"?

You will most likely propose that they look at their most recurring, or most profitable, portfolio item, and niche down in that direction. It's the obvious answer which completely evades the fundamental problem that for a business in existence for 5+ years, and with several 100 portfolio items, it is firstly almost impossible to identify the "most recurring" or "most profitable" definitively and once you do that, it is not worth sacrificing the rest of the portfolio which, in many cases, has comprised of 90%+ of their overall revenue. The suggestion basically boils down to: Start anew.

That's .. painful.

For a revenue generating company to start from scratch is not easy. There are several partners involved with different opinions. There are, in many cases, existing customers who they risk offending or confusing if they pick a positioning contrary to what they are delivering to them. Lucky are the companies who literally hit rock bottom so they could make such decisions as if they were starting from scratch.

Some options

So, what is to be done.

Now you may understand my ramble about portfolio vs case studies above. The first step is to clearly identify that what we're holding onto is a portfolio. We have hitherto not made any case explicitly. The second step is to ask: Is there a case hidden somewhere in this portfolio? Anything at all?

Perhaps there was one portfolio item where you actually went all the way. Where you delivered not just the software but the corresponding value that software was expected to deliver. Perhaps that one case is so compelling that if it be made to others of a similar profile they will be interested in communicating with you. If that is the case, it gives you a clear outbound (including paid ads) campaign to run so you can validate if this is a promising direction. So, validate.

Positioning is often found in the moment of the first repeatable success. Often, not always. And definitely not fully. But it's a good enough start.

The moment you have your first repeatable go-to-market motion, all your anxieties pertaining to existing clients and portfolio will disappear. It is after all a Sunk Cost fallacy that you are fighting, and the best way out of Sunk Costs is a viable alternative.

If no such possibility exists, however, then nothing short of a complete business model redefinition will suffice.

Thank God for AI

The good news is that in 2026, AI has given everyone the same anxieties. The entire software industry is suffering from "Portfolio extinction". Nothing you've ever done holds much weight anymore. And this applies to your clients too. Which means everyone is starting from scratch anyhow. Even Salesforce had to come out with Agentforce and then bear to brunt all of their PR muscle via Dreamforce and use their existing distribution to steer this behemoth out of dangerous waters. If you are not yet Salesforce, what gives you the false impression that you can avoid doing something like it?

In the past, I would've spent a few weeks convincing such founders to pivot completely and failed. And then 6 months later, see them wind down the business. Today, it's much easier: I just ask them what is the one big AI anxiety that you can solve for your existing customers? Why not start there?

It's a good start but not a good conclusion. At least it gets them actively thinking about a different possibility. The best conclusion will inevitably come by asking not just what the present clientele needs but what their world will look like when AGI has come or when AI has become fully integrated. How can we continue to serve them in that case?

The exact answer to this question will vary from business to business. Regardless, these are not the times to stay married to a portfolio.

When the entire industry is starting from scratch, have the humility to roll up your sleeves and get in the action too. You can only steer a sinking ship so well.

Sitting on a portfolio and not sure what case it makes? We help founders find and validate the positioning hidden in their past work. Let's talk.