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Just a note on (b): ease-of-use can also disrupt an industry, by making it accessible to people with less skill/time. It's not that it becomes less tedious use
by 6ren 16y ago
Just a note on (b): ease-of-use can also disrupt an industry, by making it accessible to people with less skill/time. It's not that it becomes less tedious use for existing users, but a step-function, that it becomes possible to use for non-users.
[The reason this (and low-cost) are potentially disruptive is because they target non-consumption: people who aren't customers of incumbents, and so acquiring them doesn't provoke a competitive response, while you grow strong enough (e.g. improve product performance/features) to potentially defeat those incumbents. The same effect also makes it easier to get started.]
- paraschopra 16y agoWow, great perspective. I agree with you completely.
- patio11 16y agoThis is a huge factor in uptake of SaaS at smaller firms. Project management software existed before Basecamp, for example, but Basecamp is one of the first packages which put it within the reach of e.g. firms with size 1 ~ 10. It is quantitatively and qualitatively a different experience than the bespoke consultingware monster PM solutions that e.g. a division of Toyota might use, but Basecamp customers can still have LTVs in the four figures very easily. That is a very nice place to be as a startup -- you can potentially acquire and service customers at a place in the solution space where competitor's cost structures make it impossible to enter. (e.g. if a large competitor needs a sales rep or custom programming, forget it, $2k of LTV is impossible for them to address -- but break that into $50 ~ $80 per month and it is within the authority of a single decisionmaker at the client firm in response to a low- or no-touch sales process.) Also, when the competition is non-consumption, sometimes your value proposition can get just amazing, because the delta in experience on even a minimally featured software solution versus paper or "we'll just deal without" is substantial. (I've got a client who says AR practically pays for his mortgage. He's, understandably, quite happy.)
- earl 16y agoAR?
- svmegatron 16y agoAR is patio11's new project: http://appointmentreminder.org http://appointmentreminder.org
- logic 16y agoSee: Arduino.
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y agoThat's an interesting point. I wonder if the Arduino itself isn't a competitive response in the sense that earlier products like the BASIC Stamp validated the presence of a market. A large number of Stamp competitors sprung up years ago, but Arduino, by going Open Source, really revolutionized the market in ways that earlier responses didn't. I remember saying to a friend recently that we're now at a point where I don't think I will ever need to design a hardware product again: just about anything I need is already available as open source hardware.