When I read I Will Teach You to Be Rich, I learned to concentrate on increasing income, not reducing costs. In that same book, Ramit Sethi also talks about the concept of money dials.

There are some things that you love so much that you would be willing to pay more to get a better version. You turn those dials up, and then you ruthlessly cut everywhere else.

The concept of money dials also applies to software product design. There are some things in your software which make it unique and valuable—is there a way to turn that up? Can you invest so much along those lines that it would be impossible for competitors to copy?

To afford that investment, what do you not need at all? What can you reduce to the minimum? It’s not just that it would cost less, it’s also less code and possible legacy thinking that stops you from making progress on areas where you have turned the dials up.