7 ms·

What You Really Need Is A Market, Not An Idea

280 points by route3 14y ago

IceCreamYou 14y ago
Marc Andreessen nailed this point years ago: https://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-startups-part-4-the-only https://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-sta...
gelizondo 14y ago
Well said. I think that a lot of entrepreneurs also completely miss the concept of loss aversion. No matter how much pain your potential idea may be solving, some people are simply in love with their current shitty situation.
visualcsharp 14y ago
I think many young founders, such as those that seem to gravitate to San Francisco startup culture, are chasing emotional goals rather than logical ones. They're after the pride and excitement of the culture itself rather than the "boring monotony" of a business plan and market research.
urlwolf 14y ago
This post is gold. And agrees with Amy Hoy, Rob Wailing, Dane Maxwell, and many others who have been writing about boostrapping for a while. If you dedicate 70% of the time to find the market and isolate the pain point, risk decreases hyperbolically :)
- hasenj 14y ago
  Could you link to these people's blogs? Would make your comment so much more useful.
  - gacba 14y ago
    Amy Hoy: http://unicornfree.com/ http://unicornfree.com/ Rob Walling: http://softwarebyrob.com/ http://softwarebyrob.com/ Dane Maxwell: http://thefoundation.io/blog/ http://thefoundation.io/blog/
mthoms 14y ago
This belongs on "the best of HN" (if such a thing exists) and should be required reading for any aspiring startup founder. In the online startup community very little space seems to be devoted to methods and tips for researching markets. Perhaps this is an opportunity itself? Someone should research this niche and then start an on online information resource if the demand is there. (edit: yes, I realize how meta this is)
- pukka_my 14y ago
  It may not be as widespread in the 'online startup community', but user-centricity is at the heart of design. (full transparency: I'm a user researcher/strategist who typically does this kind of work for more traditional CPG/service companies and at uxhours.com)
jere 14y ago
Paul, did you apply this to Hoppy Press? Just curious what the market is for hand made beer art.
- yolesaber 14y ago
  Does Hoppy Press just make posters? It would be cool if they also expanded into making labels / promotional materials for small brewers as well. I dabble in homebrewing and it is non-trivial for me to get quality labels for my batches.
  - route3 14y ago
    Yes, just posters. We've been asked about expanding in to labels before but we're happy sticking to screen prints for now (currently it's successful enough to make it worthwhile and it's a fun side business, but no plans to take it further). You aren't alone though, the need for label/promo materials has been mentioned a few times over in the homebrewing subreddit.
    - yolesaber 14y ago
      Perhaps I ought to talk to some of them. Sounds like there is a niche to fill!
  - mixmastamyk 14y ago
    Googled for beer labels and found at least dozen choices. Is there something wrong with them that I don't know about?
duopixel 14y ago
I think the article oversees an important factor in startup success: the needs of the market is a vast land, and surely there is an intersection with a passion yours. I can't envision the founder of Bang & Olufsen being indifferent to sound quality, or the founder of Herman Miller being indifferent to office furniture. I chose these companies deliberately because I don't know their founders, but I'm sure they were passionate about their field. I can't fathom building a company for a market that might be lucrative, but is meaningless to me. I'd rather build 10 failed companies than create a profitable CRM for telemarketers.
- geoffw8 14y ago
  I think while you are right you have to bear in mind that what you have commented on is their position in the market . The co's you mention are at the top end of their market, if I'm honest I know very little about these companies, I don't know if their current price/quality point is as it always has been or if its developed to that point. As a beer drinker but not quite beer lover If I realized there was an opportunity in the beer market, then as an entrepreneur I'd deliver what the market wanted. If it was a a high quality drink then I'm sure in could deliver it. Sorry if that point is fizzled I'm writing this on my phone. I'm just saying while I agree passion helps, I wouldn't say its an absolute necessity for delivering a high quality product. Edit: I realize now your point is more about you even wanting to start the company as opposed to being able yo deliver it. Personally I enjoy business and solving these problems and watching these solutions get used. What I'm saying is the buzz therefore for me is the process of business vs the space. I think what that means in practice is I don't have a list of spaces I will go into, but a list of spaces I will not. Again, sorry, writing this in my phone has not been a pleasurable experience!
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  > I can't fathom building a company for a market that might be lucrative, but is meaningless to me. I'd rather build 10 failed companies than create a profitable CRM for telemarketers. That's a luxury not many people have. Many can't afford 10 failures on top of a family to feed or other debt and obligations.
  - deleted 14y ago
sgdesign 14y ago
This is a great article, and definitely something I could recommend to a lot of people. But what about passion? Identifying a market is one thing, but should you go after it if you don't have any interest for that particular domain? I know that's what Patrick did with BingoCardCreator, but I personally don't think I would be capable of that. Of course market research is primordial, but I still think there's something to be said for following your passion and building something really cool. You might not make as much money, but on the other hand maybe you'll enjoy the process more.
Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago
Great read, if you pick the right market, it's easy to become profitable very, very quickly. In our case, we picked "Developer Recruiting in SF" as our initial market after years of personal experience dealing with incompetent recruiters, expensive job board ads that didn't produce results and talking to hundreds of founders/CEOs/CTOs who where all complaining about the same thing.
keithpeter 14y ago
"Be prepared to adjust the binoculars as go -- you may discover a market existing where you didn't know one existed. Like teachers needing bingo cards." Why do teachers need bingo cards? Because they need easy ways of making interactive and attractive games and puzzles for their students. And they will pay for stuff, but not huge amounts. You might get a monthly fee for a Web based authoring system if the figure is low. We have to be careful about putting students on Web sites, so probably not a fully Web based membership system. Plenty of room there, UK has around 600,000 teachers, US must be 5 times that. Similar for Europe and other continents.
- MaxGabriel 14y ago
  It was a reference to Bingo Card Creator, patio11's company.
  - keithpeter 14y ago
    Yes, I know, and I thought it might be useful to state a few obvious reasons why some game software might be useful to teachers!
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
hodder 14y ago
I was the person who started the link referenced in the article, "Can we brainstorm a list of sites like bingo card creator", and admittedly the post was either a poor idea, or at the very least poorly phrased. Coming from a business background, I just assumed that any idea people would put out there would have been small solutions to small problems... not "sitcom startups". I guess I was wrong. Really the only thing I was looking for were problems that could potentially be solved with minimal capital, and only 1 or 2 people. I wasn't looking to bypass market validation, or solving poeple's problems. So, going back to the underlying question of starting businesses, how do you go about finding a market, finding problems, finding solutions to those problems, and finding paying customers? Preferably all without wasting a ton of time or money? I hope Patrick replies to this thread and walks us through his process. Did Patrick start with the teachers market because he knew some teachers? Did he ask them what problems they had? Did they complain to him that were dying to play classroom bingo, that the existing solutions are terrible, and that they would pay him if he provided a solution? I know some people involved in trades, some in education, finance, and consulting. Several of these people are either the business owners themselves, or have the authority to pay for software solutions to their problems. These are primarily offline markets. How do you suggest going from here, to paying customers? Asking them outright what problems they have? What problems they have that software might provide a solution? What problems they have with current software solutions they use?
- MDS100 14y ago
  He had some on a mailing list for his Company IIRC. He solved this for some teacher on the list and 60+ showed demand for it. It's in his podcasts or on his sites. Ask them for problems/pain points and let them talk and you figure out how software can help.
rsobers 14y ago
I feel like this has been said a billion times. (Isn't this what Steve Blank's customer development methodology is all about?) I do realize, though, that now matter how many times we say it, people fall into the trap of thinking their idea is enough. In very rare cases where there is no market yet, ideas do matter (e.g., the automobile).
Tyrant505 14y ago
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them" - Jobs
- Too 14y ago
  "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Still, faster horses is a useful requirement. Sure, you have to abstract away the technology, but the need is there.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/henry_ford_never_said_the_fast.html http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/henry_ford_never_said_the_fa... http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/
corford 14y ago
An idea without a market is largely useless (from an income generating perspective at least). But as a single founder currently slugging through the mountain of work needed to get something off the ground, I know I couldn't do it if my heart wasn't in it and I had no passion for what I'm working on other than plugging a hole in a randomly identified market. Despite having an entrepreneurial streak and coming from an entrepreneurial family, I was 29 before I finally decided to quit my job and pursue the idea I'm now working on. A big reason it took so long was because I was only willing to risk everything on an idea that I believed in AND had a demonstrated market. Having one or the other wasn't enough. It isn't all roses though. Even if you think you've got a good idea and a valid market for it, it's still all for nothing if you can't get in front of and retain a critical mass of customers. That's the piece of the puzzle I'll shortly be faced with and I'm not relishing it.
- zanny 14y ago
  Delicious networking and marketing!
armenarmen 14y ago
having built stuff (that failed) based on "a good idea" I can not agree more with the post
- donebizkit 14y ago
  seconded! story of my life
callmeed 14y ago
This post appears to simply restate what it attempts to argue against (niche ideas and the previous brainstorming post). Niches are markets. Dog walkers probably could use some kind of SaaS app. Restaurants desperately need better websites. And if you have a passion or (especially) deep knowledge of those industries/markets/niches, there's nothing wrong with experimenting with ideas. No one is arguing against doing market research–in fact, multiple people stated that as the first step in the HN post mentioned. And I doubt the OP on that thread was saying "make some ideas up out of the blue with no basis in industry knowledge". C'mon. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917661 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917661
- ahoyhere 14y ago
  Niches aren't markets, they're demographics… statement of facts, essentially, which may be incidental or immaterial. A job title doesn't tell you about beliefs, aspirations, willingness to pay for things, sense of community, etc. Do dog walkers hang out together online in a place you can identify? If not, how will you learn about them in a way that's natural & not manipulated by their feeling of social obligation or desire to be nice to you and positive about your ideas? Do they hang out together? Do they talk to each other? Do they spread information on products they love, do they help each other and recommend things? Do they care about being better dog walkers, saving time or money? If not, they share demographics in common, but they're not a market in the sense that I teach in my class. For a niche to be a bonafide market, for the purposes of creating & selling a product, there needs to be a solid segment which thinks and behaves in the same (pro-commerce) ways.
  - callmeed 14y ago
    "niche" is simply shorthand for "niche market" IMO [1]. So it very much is a market and not a demographic. Without delving into a battle of semantics, I don't think either of these posts referred to a demographic of "people who are employed as dog walkers" ... I read them as the niche market of "people who own dog walking businesses." I cannot answer all those questions about dog walking business owners because I am not one nor do I have insider knowledge about that business. >> Do they care about being better dog walkers, saving time or money? I'll go out on a limb here and say "YES", if you own a dog walking business, you care about saving time or money (or making more money). That being said, I can answer all those questions about other niches (photographers, hackers, restaurant owners, churches, etc.) because I either am one or know that market. So, that gives me a pretty good starting point for identifying needs, doing deeper research, and then creating a product that meets those needs and that niche market is willing to pay for. That is, in my opinion, what both posts were saying (in different ways). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market
ahoyhere 14y ago
Nice to see another one of my 30x500 alumni rocking the HN charts. With great, solid advice. Congrats, Paul. Great post.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
zeynalov 14y ago
Similar discussion about ideas - http://www.vusal.me/essays/ideas/ http://www.vusal.me/essays/ideas/
eriksank 14y ago
I am involved in a bunch of smaller things, each with different people that I met along the way of doing other things -- serendipitiously -- and I never felt the need to drop everything to do a big, risky startup around a "great idea" or a "great niche market". None of the smaller things I do, actually has a full-time person working on it. That's the beauty of websites. They are always there, but there is no need to attend to them on a full-time basis. It's all running on solar power and wind energy ;-) I may do something bigger one day or another, but I don't see the pressing need to actually make that happen. It will only happen by serendipity.
aaroncray 14y ago
What you really need is a new category not a market.
babuskov 14y ago
Riiiight... Mark Zuckerberg researched the worldwide market before starting Facebook. Kevin Rose researched the market before starting Digg. And all the other successful entrepreneurs are known for this. "Research the market" approach is good if you want to build a regular bootstrapped business. If you're building a startup, you should actually build an MVP and "Test the market". Please don't get me wrong, but I still believe that building a couple of duds and failing is the better way to go. If you're building something truly innovative and disruptive, most people you ask during "research" won't even know that they need it.
- codewright 14y ago
  Facebook hasn't really gotten its (profit) legs yet, and Kevin Rose (Digg for that matter) is about the worst possible example you could've chosen. Kevin Rose is the horse of choice for the Riders of the Startupocalypse proclaiming the end is near. I'd say there is an argument to be made in both directions. Clearly there are a lot of startups that didn't arise from market analysis, but there's also a lot to be said for not panhandling for VC money without understanding your addressable market. I'd rather not see those arguments unintentionally strawmanned by somebody who is apparently unaware of the current state of Facebook's stock or what exactly became of Digg and why. Or how Rose is widely reviled for throwing his engineers under the bus for what were ultimately product decisions made high up.
  - novaleaf 14y ago
    i don't think your counter-argument stands very well: trying to argue that facebook is somehow not successful seems just silly.
- antidaily 14y ago
  I guess it all depends on whether you want to be profitable or potentially "disruptive".
- arbuge 14y ago
  This is correct but in my experience that's a far higher risk path to take. Potentially much higher rewards too, granted, but you're really gambling with this approach. The author outlines a lower risk approach to customer development that I think works better for most people, unless your goal is to be the next Zuck at all costs.
mbesto 14y ago
The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-pmarca-gu-2.html http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca...

280 points by route3 14y ago

Marc Andreessen nailed this point years ago: https://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-startups-part-4-the-only https://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-sta...

gelizondo 14y ago

Well said. I think that a lot of entrepreneurs also completely miss the concept of loss aversion. No matter how much pain your potential idea may be solving, some people are simply in love with their current shitty situation.

visualcsharp 14y ago

I think many young founders, such as those that seem to gravitate to San Francisco startup culture, are chasing emotional goals rather than logical ones. They're after the pride and excitement of the culture itself rather than the "boring monotony" of a business plan and market research.

urlwolf 14y ago

This post is gold. And agrees with Amy Hoy, Rob Wailing, Dane Maxwell, and many others who have been writing about boostrapping for a while. If you dedicate 70% of the time to find the market and isolate the pain point, risk decreases hyperbolically :)

hasenj 14y ago
Could you link to these people's blogs? Would make your comment so much more useful.
- gacba 14y ago
  Amy Hoy: http://unicornfree.com/ http://unicornfree.com/ Rob Walling: http://softwarebyrob.com/ http://softwarebyrob.com/ Dane Maxwell: http://thefoundation.io/blog/ http://thefoundation.io/blog/

mthoms 14y ago

This belongs on "the best of HN" (if such a thing exists) and should be required reading for any aspiring startup founder. In the online startup community very little space seems to be devoted to methods and tips for researching markets. Perhaps this is an opportunity itself? Someone should research this niche and then start an on online information resource if the demand is there. (edit: yes, I realize how meta this is)

pukka_my 14y ago
It may not be as widespread in the 'online startup community', but user-centricity is at the heart of design. (full transparency: I'm a user researcher/strategist who typically does this kind of work for more traditional CPG/service companies and at uxhours.com)

jere 14y ago

Paul, did you apply this to Hoppy Press? Just curious what the market is for hand made beer art.

yolesaber 14y ago
Does Hoppy Press just make posters? It would be cool if they also expanded into making labels / promotional materials for small brewers as well. I dabble in homebrewing and it is non-trivial for me to get quality labels for my batches.
- route3 14y ago
  Yes, just posters. We've been asked about expanding in to labels before but we're happy sticking to screen prints for now (currently it's successful enough to make it worthwhile and it's a fun side business, but no plans to take it further). You aren't alone though, the need for label/promo materials has been mentioned a few times over in the homebrewing subreddit.
  - yolesaber 14y ago
    Perhaps I ought to talk to some of them. Sounds like there is a niche to fill!
- mixmastamyk 14y ago
  Googled for beer labels and found at least dozen choices. Is there something wrong with them that I don't know about?

duopixel 14y ago

I think the article oversees an important factor in startup success: the needs of the market is a vast land, and surely there is an intersection with a passion yours. I can't envision the founder of Bang & Olufsen being indifferent to sound quality, or the founder of Herman Miller being indifferent to office furniture. I chose these companies deliberately because I don't know their founders, but I'm sure they were passionate about their field. I can't fathom building a company for a market that might be lucrative, but is meaningless to me. I'd rather build 10 failed companies than create a profitable CRM for telemarketers.

geoffw8 14y ago
I think while you are right you have to bear in mind that what you have commented on is their position in the market . The co's you mention are at the top end of their market, if I'm honest I know very little about these companies, I don't know if their current price/quality point is as it always has been or if its developed to that point. As a beer drinker but not quite beer lover If I realized there was an opportunity in the beer market, then as an entrepreneur I'd deliver what the market wanted. If it was a a high quality drink then I'm sure in could deliver it. Sorry if that point is fizzled I'm writing this on my phone. I'm just saying while I agree passion helps, I wouldn't say its an absolute necessity for delivering a high quality product. Edit: I realize now your point is more about you even wanting to start the company as opposed to being able yo deliver it. Personally I enjoy business and solving these problems and watching these solutions get used. What I'm saying is the buzz therefore for me is the process of business vs the space. I think what that means in practice is I don't have a list of spaces I will go into, but a list of spaces I will not. Again, sorry, writing this in my phone has not been a pleasurable experience!
hayksaakian 14y ago
> I can't fathom building a company for a market that might be lucrative, but is meaningless to me. I'd rather build 10 failed companies than create a profitable CRM for telemarketers. That's a luxury not many people have. Many can't afford 10 failures on top of a family to feed or other debt and obligations.
- deleted 14y ago

sgdesign 14y ago

This is a great article, and definitely something I could recommend to a lot of people. But what about passion? Identifying a market is one thing, but should you go after it if you don't have any interest for that particular domain? I know that's what Patrick did with BingoCardCreator, but I personally don't think I would be capable of that. Of course market research is primordial, but I still think there's something to be said for following your passion and building something really cool. You might not make as much money, but on the other hand maybe you'll enjoy the process more.

Matt_Mickiewicz 14y ago

Great read, if you pick the right market, it's easy to become profitable very, very quickly. In our case, we picked "Developer Recruiting in SF" as our initial market after years of personal experience dealing with incompetent recruiters, expensive job board ads that didn't produce results and talking to hundreds of founders/CEOs/CTOs who where all complaining about the same thing.

keithpeter 14y ago

"Be prepared to adjust the binoculars as go -- you may discover a market existing where you didn't know one existed. Like teachers needing bingo cards." Why do teachers need bingo cards? Because they need easy ways of making interactive and attractive games and puzzles for their students. And they will pay for stuff, but not huge amounts. You might get a monthly fee for a Web based authoring system if the figure is low. We have to be careful about putting students on Web sites, so probably not a fully Web based membership system. Plenty of room there, UK has around 600,000 teachers, US must be 5 times that. Similar for Europe and other continents.

MaxGabriel 14y ago
It was a reference to Bingo Card Creator, patio11's company.
- keithpeter 14y ago
  Yes, I know, and I thought it might be useful to state a few obvious reasons why some game software might be useful to teachers!

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

hodder 14y ago

I was the person who started the link referenced in the article, "Can we brainstorm a list of sites like bingo card creator", and admittedly the post was either a poor idea, or at the very least poorly phrased. Coming from a business background, I just assumed that any idea people would put out there would have been small solutions to small problems... not "sitcom startups". I guess I was wrong. Really the only thing I was looking for were problems that could potentially be solved with minimal capital, and only 1 or 2 people. I wasn't looking to bypass market validation, or solving poeple's problems. So, going back to the underlying question of starting businesses, how do you go about finding a market, finding problems, finding solutions to those problems, and finding paying customers? Preferably all without wasting a ton of time or money? I hope Patrick replies to this thread and walks us through his process. Did Patrick start with the teachers market because he knew some teachers? Did he ask them what problems they had? Did they complain to him that were dying to play classroom bingo, that the existing solutions are terrible, and that they would pay him if he provided a solution? I know some people involved in trades, some in education, finance, and consulting. Several of these people are either the business owners themselves, or have the authority to pay for software solutions to their problems. These are primarily offline markets. How do you suggest going from here, to paying customers? Asking them outright what problems they have? What problems they have that software might provide a solution? What problems they have with current software solutions they use?

MDS100 14y ago
He had some on a mailing list for his Company IIRC. He solved this for some teacher on the list and 60+ showed demand for it. It's in his podcasts or on his sites. Ask them for problems/pain points and let them talk and you figure out how software can help.

rsobers 14y ago

I feel like this has been said a billion times. (Isn't this what Steve Blank's customer development methodology is all about?) I do realize, though, that now matter how many times we say it, people fall into the trap of thinking their idea is enough. In very rare cases where there is no market yet, ideas do matter (e.g., the automobile).

Tyrant505 14y ago

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them" - Jobs

Too 14y ago
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford
- icebraining 14y ago
  Still, faster horses is a useful requirement. Sure, you have to abstract away the technology, but the need is there.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/henry_ford_never_said_the_fast.html http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/henry_ford_never_said_the_fa... http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/ http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/

corford 14y ago

An idea without a market is largely useless (from an income generating perspective at least). But as a single founder currently slugging through the mountain of work needed to get something off the ground, I know I couldn't do it if my heart wasn't in it and I had no passion for what I'm working on other than plugging a hole in a randomly identified market. Despite having an entrepreneurial streak and coming from an entrepreneurial family, I was 29 before I finally decided to quit my job and pursue the idea I'm now working on. A big reason it took so long was because I was only willing to risk everything on an idea that I believed in AND had a demonstrated market. Having one or the other wasn't enough. It isn't all roses though. Even if you think you've got a good idea and a valid market for it, it's still all for nothing if you can't get in front of and retain a critical mass of customers. That's the piece of the puzzle I'll shortly be faced with and I'm not relishing it.

zanny 14y ago
Delicious networking and marketing!

armenarmen 14y ago

having built stuff (that failed) based on "a good idea" I can not agree more with the post

donebizkit 14y ago
seconded! story of my life

callmeed 14y ago

This post appears to simply restate what it attempts to argue against (niche ideas and the previous brainstorming post). Niches are markets. Dog walkers probably could use some kind of SaaS app. Restaurants desperately need better websites. And if you have a passion or (especially) deep knowledge of those industries/markets/niches, there's nothing wrong with experimenting with ideas. No one is arguing against doing market research–in fact, multiple people stated that as the first step in the HN post mentioned. And I doubt the OP on that thread was saying "make some ideas up out of the blue with no basis in industry knowledge". C'mon. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917661 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4917661

ahoyhere 14y ago
Niches aren't markets, they're demographics… statement of facts, essentially, which may be incidental or immaterial. A job title doesn't tell you about beliefs, aspirations, willingness to pay for things, sense of community, etc. Do dog walkers hang out together online in a place you can identify? If not, how will you learn about them in a way that's natural & not manipulated by their feeling of social obligation or desire to be nice to you and positive about your ideas? Do they hang out together? Do they talk to each other? Do they spread information on products they love, do they help each other and recommend things? Do they care about being better dog walkers, saving time or money? If not, they share demographics in common, but they're not a market in the sense that I teach in my class. For a niche to be a bonafide market, for the purposes of creating & selling a product, there needs to be a solid segment which thinks and behaves in the same (pro-commerce) ways.
- callmeed 14y ago
  "niche" is simply shorthand for "niche market" IMO [1]. So it very much is a market and not a demographic. Without delving into a battle of semantics, I don't think either of these posts referred to a demographic of "people who are employed as dog walkers" ... I read them as the niche market of "people who own dog walking businesses." I cannot answer all those questions about dog walking business owners because I am not one nor do I have insider knowledge about that business. >> Do they care about being better dog walkers, saving time or money? I'll go out on a limb here and say "YES", if you own a dog walking business, you care about saving time or money (or making more money). That being said, I can answer all those questions about other niches (photographers, hackers, restaurant owners, churches, etc.) because I either am one or know that market. So, that gives me a pretty good starting point for identifying needs, doing deeper research, and then creating a product that meets those needs and that niche market is willing to pay for. That is, in my opinion, what both posts were saying (in different ways). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_market

ahoyhere 14y ago

Nice to see another one of my 30x500 alumni rocking the HN charts. With great, solid advice. Congrats, Paul. Great post.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

zeynalov 14y ago

Similar discussion about ideas - http://www.vusal.me/essays/ideas/ http://www.vusal.me/essays/ideas/

eriksank 14y ago

I am involved in a bunch of smaller things, each with different people that I met along the way of doing other things -- serendipitiously -- and I never felt the need to drop everything to do a big, risky startup around a "great idea" or a "great niche market". None of the smaller things I do, actually has a full-time person working on it. That's the beauty of websites. They are always there, but there is no need to attend to them on a full-time basis. It's all running on solar power and wind energy ;-) I may do something bigger one day or another, but I don't see the pressing need to actually make that happen. It will only happen by serendipity.

aaroncray 14y ago

What you really need is a new category not a market.

babuskov 14y ago

Riiiight... Mark Zuckerberg researched the worldwide market before starting Facebook. Kevin Rose researched the market before starting Digg. And all the other successful entrepreneurs are known for this. "Research the market" approach is good if you want to build a regular bootstrapped business. If you're building a startup, you should actually build an MVP and "Test the market". Please don't get me wrong, but I still believe that building a couple of duds and failing is the better way to go. If you're building something truly innovative and disruptive, most people you ask during "research" won't even know that they need it.

codewright 14y ago
Facebook hasn't really gotten its (profit) legs yet, and Kevin Rose (Digg for that matter) is about the worst possible example you could've chosen. Kevin Rose is the horse of choice for the Riders of the Startupocalypse proclaiming the end is near. I'd say there is an argument to be made in both directions. Clearly there are a lot of startups that didn't arise from market analysis, but there's also a lot to be said for not panhandling for VC money without understanding your addressable market. I'd rather not see those arguments unintentionally strawmanned by somebody who is apparently unaware of the current state of Facebook's stock or what exactly became of Digg and why. Or how Rose is widely reviled for throwing his engineers under the bus for what were ultimately product decisions made high up.
- novaleaf 14y ago
  i don't think your counter-argument stands very well: trying to argue that facebook is somehow not successful seems just silly.
antidaily 14y ago
I guess it all depends on whether you want to be profitable or potentially "disruptive".
arbuge 14y ago
This is correct but in my experience that's a far higher risk path to take. Potentially much higher rewards too, granted, but you're really gambling with this approach. The author outlines a lower risk approach to customer development that I think works better for most people, unless your goal is to be the next Zuck at all costs.

mbesto 14y ago

The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-pmarca-gu-2.html http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca...