Does anyone care about your new product? | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone care about your new product?

andrewchenblog.com

41 pointsrevorad10 comments

This post grapples with some interesting issues, especially conceptual confusion about terminology, and how to classify specific situations.

New market or pre-existing category: I agree an mp3 player was a pre-existing category - but what about iTunes? It is more like Edison creating a power-station and network along with the light-bulb; or Birdseye establishing freezers in the supermarket, along with actually freezing food.

The iPhone is interesting: sure, it's a phone, and sure, smart-phones were a pre-existing category. But the iPhone (a) included new technology (touch-screen) that revolutionized user interaction with phones (does that make it a new category?); (b) it wasn't really a phone, nor really a smart-phone, but a platform for apps - like a PC; (c) the innovation of the appstore, to facilitate that platform.

And let us remember that, historically, Apple invented the PC.

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Is a new sub-category (of a pre-existing category) a new market or a pre-existing category? And, more importantly, what difference does it make - i.e. for what tasks is this distinction relevant? (how is it used)

Target an existing need (Christensen says customers 'hire' products to do jobs they want to get done): I agree this is a good way to go - but it is much broader than "pre-existing category". Let's be clear though: there's needs that exist that people are aware of (enough to search on), and needs that exist that people aren't consciously aware of. And that's where we truly get into "new": not just a new category, but new need.

I agree that new markets are much harder to target, but also much more fun. Andrew, I'd be interested to hear you elaborate on " 'blank-slate' ideas" being superficially innovative, riskier and “first mover advantage” being wildly overrated. Can you give examples? (I don't quite understand what you mean).

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Re: "marketplace" abstract terms: Reminds me of annual report terms like caffeinated beverages and baked confectionery - a cool, elevated god-like view that no-one can relate to.

A horseless carriage is a carriage that doesn't go - unless you already know about cars.

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PS: despite all my complaints, I find it a very interesting submission - and I've been playing with the https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer and it's a very revealing and powerful tool.

"But the iPhone (a) included new technology (touch-screen) that revolutionized user interaction with phones (does that make it a new category?); (b) it wasn't really a phone, nor really a smart-phone, but a platform for apps - like a PC; (c) the innovation of the appstore, to facilitate that platform."

a) Touchscreens had been available on smart phones for QUITE some time. They just were designed for styluses. They WERE pretty awesome, though.

b) The original iPhone was most certainly not a platform for apps. Yet, it was still very popular.

But really, why bring up Apple at all? For a company, Apple is weird and opaque. Trying to use their actions or success to justify your start-up is foolish, since you don't really understand how and why Apple got to where they are. No, really. You don't. (Not nearly well enough to duplicate or otherwise replicate it) Bringing them up is an unnecessary and unhelpful complication.

EDIT: Yeesh, I guess I skimmed right over the part of the article where this is brought up, for my last paragraph.

I was commenting on the article, which discusses apple products starting at "The reference example of this is Apple..."

As a general rule, one should expect no-one to care about anything new you happen to be working on. Consider: if people cared, it would be done already. The only worthwhile, achievable things that aren't already done are the things that people don't care about - through ignorance, or some other barrier that can be eliminated by persuasion and demonstration (usually much more the former than the latter).

Take my latest side-project:

https://www.opencures.org

From a sympathetic audience of thousands who read my other related work, persuading even a handful of people to help Open Cures in any way is real challenge. This is the way of the world: if people cared and agreed and were up for it at first glance, it would be done already.

So expect the long uphill fight. It says nothing about the merits of what you're doing; it just is.

The only worthwhile, achievable things that aren't already done are the things that people don't care about

How does Groupon fit into this statement?

>As a general rule, one should expect no-one to care about anything new you happen to be working on. Consider: if people cared, it would be done already

I think that's a bit of a jump! There's plenty of things that people care about but don't personally think they could achieve. If you do a startup to end world hunger, people would be interested as soon as you proved your credibility in actually achieving it.

Also - Interesting side-project! What's your background (are you a software dev? biotech scientist?)

I'm a software tech, with a few years of experience in writing about the life science field - this would be a lot easier to bootstrap if I had actual biotechnology skills and deep knowledge there as well.

There are people working credibly on ending world hunger, and all sorts of other even more important projects (such as ending aging, which kills far more people and causes far more harm in the developing world) and they have the same uphill struggle and lack of interest. I submit that we're using different reflexive definitions of the word "care", which might be expanded out as (a) "care in the abstract sense" and (b) "care enough to actually do something".

I keep seeing this advice that you can find market by looking at adwords tool. I love the idea, but I've never seen a real example that end up as a real product, only the general tip and I tried but never got interesting results ? Does someone has a real credible example ?

I can't speak for the other advice you're seeing, but the article isn't really suggesting that you can go to the adwords tool with a blank slate and find a market. Rather that you can use the adwords tool to validate that a market exists based on search volume.

The book Start Small, Stay Small, gives examples of this, as well as ideas on finding niche markets.

Interesting and useful stuff. You may locate a niche market, find that there is genuine interest in it as reflected in ad words, and also get a sense for what the existing market is like (e.g., is there already a highly-dominate player, and is it cost-effective to try to move into this niche).

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