@AUROPAL this week's @Strawman email and the teachings of Porter provide an important and relevant lesson. Damstra was too scatter-gun in its growth strategy.
As I wrote in my straw in 2021 when I removed it from my watch list (having sold in RL in June 2021 after having lost (only) half my capital): "I see the EPP strategy as too broad. Too many modules, too many verticals, too many countries. From my perspective the strategy lacks focus - a big red flag."
I think the vision of building an "enterprise protection platform" was laudable. Similar level of ambition to Richard White at $WTC, wanting to build the operating system for global logistics. Bold visions that will take several decades to achieve.
The key difference is that Damstra started behaving early on as if it had a viable EPP. Whereas Wisetech progressively built the modules of its platfrom, starting with the freight-forwarding process and building out incrementally - functionality, markets, customers. Even now, it is early in the journey.
In my mind they are case studies of the two extreme ends of the spectrum Porter is referring to.
Another, potentially in this category is $EVS. With its limited resources, I wonder whether it is trying to grow out on too many fronts, with limited synergies between them, and with limited resources not really doing a great job in any one area.
Better to start off and pick one thing, and do it brilliantly, and then build closely related things on to it, or add new customers or new markets, leveraging the same capability. $ALU, $PME, $WTC, $AD8, $XRO (although lost the plot a bit for a while before pulling it back), and maybe emerging $JIN, $RUL, $CAT, $SPZ, etc.