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Market determines your growth almost always. I have enough data points now to basically say this with enough certainty. Friendster is the countercase where the

Market determines your growth almost always. I have enough data points now to basically say this with enough certainty. Friendster is the countercase where the technology couldn't scale, and their execution was poor, and they focused on revenue at the expense of growth, but generally like... now-a-days with modern web stack market is basically all that matters.

theptip 8y ago
Is your claim "for most companies the quality is already sufficient, and so it's not the limiting factor (even though it would be if the quality was insufficient)"? Or literally "the TAM matters, your app's quality doesn't"?
- randall 8y ago
  The prior. Now-a-days, the majority of developers can build a quality app since infrastructure and tooling (heroku etc) are widely available, that you can paper over most completely horrible / unacceptable experiences by limiting features early on. If you pick a huge market and have simply 1-2 compelling features, you can go from nothing to something within 90 days typically, and then use that to become unstoppable.
  - wiwillia 8y ago
    I'm not sure I agree that quality isn't a major driver of success. Two counterpoints: - Shopify came in and dominated Magento and others via a much better quality product (later they built network effects with app store, but originally it was just an easier platform) - Slack came into a workplace communication space where there were (arguably) free alternatives in IRC and others and won with a better, simpler product. I think product quality is extremely important in determining success. I think it was less important 10-15 years ago as the web was establishing itself, but today consumers expect a polished, feature-complete experience.
    - lostctown 8y ago
      But then how do I sell my mvp startup newsletter to all the people not capable of actually building a quality product? /s In all seriousness, it is comical how often people apply revisionist explanations for the rise of certain companies. Its simple really. Great product + big market. You must have both, no exceptions.

theptip 8y ago

Is your claim "for most companies the quality is already sufficient, and so it's not the limiting factor (even though it would be if the quality was insufficient)"? Or literally "the TAM matters, your app's quality doesn't"?

randall 8y ago
The prior. Now-a-days, the majority of developers can build a quality app since infrastructure and tooling (heroku etc) are widely available, that you can paper over most completely horrible / unacceptable experiences by limiting features early on. If you pick a huge market and have simply 1-2 compelling features, you can go from nothing to something within 90 days typically, and then use that to become unstoppable.
- wiwillia 8y ago
  I'm not sure I agree that quality isn't a major driver of success. Two counterpoints: - Shopify came in and dominated Magento and others via a much better quality product (later they built network effects with app store, but originally it was just an easier platform) - Slack came into a workplace communication space where there were (arguably) free alternatives in IRC and others and won with a better, simpler product. I think product quality is extremely important in determining success. I think it was less important 10-15 years ago as the web was establishing itself, but today consumers expect a polished, feature-complete experience.
  - lostctown 8y ago
    But then how do I sell my mvp startup newsletter to all the people not capable of actually building a quality product? /s In all seriousness, it is comical how often people apply revisionist explanations for the rise of certain companies. Its simple really. Great product + big market. You must have both, no exceptions.