So for the entrepreneurs who read my blog I wanted to post up an interesting discussion/topic that THE Brian Shaler and I discussed about 2 weekends ago.
When you first have an idea about something, like IDK, maybe something like a social network for baby boomers, or a speed dating services using web cams, you need to understand that buzz will build, but buzz can’t build if it’s only fun for a million users. You need to take and have an idea that is fun for 1 to 10 people as well as scales for 10,000 to 1 million.
Not to get into any specifics, but I attended a networking event and someone was discussing an idea they had (which I think could work, I do not think there are bad ideas, just bad implementations) and how if they could get 1,000 or 10,000 users it would be fun. Well let’s think about that for a second, 1,000 users.
Do you have at least 1,000 people in your address book? Would those 1,000 actually USE the product/service your pitching? How fast do you need this product/service to spread before people use it daily? Does this concept scale, would it be fun with 1 million people, or is it more for a small startup business.
Okay, so not to shoot down the product/idea, but you need to keep your feet on the ground before you swing for the fences. I know myself I have had these moments and then started to realize how HIGH these numbers can get, but you need to KEEP these numbers realistic of people who would use it daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Thinking an idea will work if only 1% of China’s population works, well duh! If a lot of people use it, then YES it could work, but how are you going to get 1% or 10,000 users using it before people just forget about it. Hey I am not one to say it sucks, but … bubble? just watch the video. Friendship bracelets and newspapers!
Okay, sorry for that small rant, but building traffic and getting people to use something is hard! So you built your product/service and now you want the buzz to grow, well how can you make it a Purple Cow and get it out there. You blog about it, you get your friends to blog about it, maybe you get some PR from sites here and there, but it can easily takes 6 weeks to build up 100 or even 1,000 users. Even if you average over a million page views a month, having 1 or 2 ads that pitch the site still will only give you about a 2% signup rate.
The hard part IS building this network, once you are there, you can leverage this network for the next one. In fact, you may want to join or get contact lists from others who are in a similar niche market. But getting that “first burst” is very hard and I hate to see so many people work on ideas that would ONLY work if there are a LOT of people. I know for myself, this is something that I have really started to focus on. Why build it, if you need a 10,000 users to make it fun. Build it so that it’s fun with 10 users, and build up the buzz.
I would also recommend the idea/concept of “stand on the shoulders of giants”. How? Well, as I recall APIs and Mashups are the new pink, so try and leveraging “members” from facebook or Develop it with open social.
So yea, almost every idea is good when you have a lot of people using it but building up that “network” of users, is hard and should NOT be the focus of a concept. Think of something that you use everyday, is it fun for 1 to 2 people to use it, maybe a small office? Does it scale so when 10,000 of your “friends” are using it, its still fun? Then hey, go with it, but don’t waste time on an idea that only works with thousands/millions of users. And if you ARE that passionate, leverage a network like Facebook or Open Social.
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Nice post. There are tons of ideas thrown around at tech meet-ups, and it’s important for them to end up online so they aren’t forgotten about.
I like to use Twitter as an example of an idea that scales from zero. The site is fun and addicting, whether you and 10 friends are the ONLY users on the site or it has millions of users. The same is true with del.icio.us, YouTube, Flickr, etc.