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Ask HN: How do you effectively balance altruism with a strong business model?
I'm in the planning phase of creating some new software and have been mulling over my goals and target audience. I've found it surprisingly challenging to reason about how much altruism I should hope to achieve. Sometimes it feels like being the most helpful is at-odds with developing the strongest possible business model.
As a more concrete example, let's say I am creating some software to help people with their mental health journey.
What market do I target? At a high level, two options come to mind:
- Those who have identified a want for mental health assistance, are currently suffering, and are searching for tools to mitigate.
- Those who have not identified a want for mental health assistance, are currently suffering, and are worsening.
Objectively, I am far more interested and concerned for those in the latter group. They are in a more vulnerable position and stand to benefit more from my efforts, but they are also more difficult to sell solutions. The former is looking to be sold, which is alluring, but I am not as worried for them because they have enough self-awareness to identify their personal needs and are seeking solutions.
In talking to people, I've come to the conclusion that a solution for one group will look markedly different than a solution for the other. Those seeking assistance expect self-help language to exist in the software and are emboldened by it, but, conversely, those not yet searching are repulsed by the direct language and need a softer approach. It doesn't seem reasonable to dedicate an MVP to the former market with the hope of pivoting to encompass the latter.
My gut says capitalism is too ruthless to tolerate pursuit of the less valuable market for an MVP and that the only viable approach is to chase the money and then, once ~stable, tolerate losses in the pursuit of rebalancing the business model more towards altruism.
Does that sound right to you? What comes to your mind when you consider the difficulties in balancing altruism with a strong business model?
- mdp2021 4y agoFocus on doing what is needed so that you have margin to do what is right. I.e. use a comprehensive view that embraces the two poles organically.
- SeanAnderson 4y ago> Focus on doing what is needed so that you have margin to do what is right. I'm gonna be borrowing this statement in the future if you don't mind. :) Well said!
- mdp2021 4y agoCreated on the spot, just for you. But it is what you typically do in life, if you have a job that opens the possibilities to do more. But: do not forget that the point is with the organic view: the interdependence of the two poles.
- fuzzfactor 4y agoI agree too, this is said so well. Both groups benefit from the same things. The difference is in how you sell & deliver your offerings. For the first group you have to make it available to those that are seeking. This requires a type of promotion that is primarily informative word-spreading so these turn out to be "clients", or in the traditional medical parlance "patients", who appreciate finding out about your efforts on their behalf. The second group will need to be reached by what is considered much more persuasive advertising, often coupled with strong closing efforts, so you can turn them into "customers", or in the modern medical parlance "customers", who respond to your sales efforts perhaps more so than your actual technology efforts on their behalf. Whether it's well-recognized or not. You will have to handle both groups differently even if you deliver the same value to each. Definitely the comprehensive view.