DISQUS

vinkash · 1 month ago

Good point - "the best way to test whether you have a ‘must have’ product is to threaten to take the prototype away from your early users"!

In our case we were having trouble signing up users. When we decided to pull the product the users were surprised.

After some surveys we found that the problem was with the messaging on our website. We were stressing features rather than direct benefits.

Alan Warms · 1 month ago

Great post Bernard - we used to call it are you a vitamin or an antibiotic? The other issue here is to time your capital spend against where you are in the market...when you're building up a new market (a la twitter) keep expenses to a minimum - and don't scale till you have to. @Ev and company have done an incredible job on that front

Bernard Moon · 1 month ago

Thanks, Alan. Yep, I know of that analogy too. I didn't know about your new startup. Looks cool.

Sameer · 1 month ago

Awesome points. Esp the do-they-start-a-riot bit :)
Question : For new markets, it generally tougher to guess if its a must have till you're into it. And as needs get more nuanced (holds true for resegmented markets too) its a tough call to make in the early days whether its a 'fad' or a 'must have'. Easy example - an email account is not a fashion accessory anymore, but I cannot wonder if it was not just a better mousetrap as compared to snail mail, early on. The nature of/need for the product does change over time - no one would think of email in terms of "better than letters" today, would they ? Other examples would be a better way to find info, a better way to shop for products with references, a better way to share pictures, ad infinitum. At the beginning, without the benefit of hindsight, a lot many of these might've seemed like 'not killer enough' till users started rioting about their being down for a few hours.