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not sure I agree with this article, sure all those big companies started out small, but it was a whole other market back then. The game has changed, you now ne
by vaksel 17y ago
not sure I agree with this article, sure all those big companies started out small, but it was a whole other market back then.
The game has changed, you now need that huge feature list, you now need that top notch design etc. Why would someone use your product with all the features missing, when they can use another free product that already has those features?
- destraynor 17y agoWell, my point is that all the big products have grown to where they are. Apple launched a phone that couldn't MMS, couldn't have applications on it, couldn't copy and paste. Even take Mint.com, they started out with just a pie chart and one bank - it was only afterwards they got ever so clever. If you pick pretty much any big success story and chart the different between them when they got big and where they are now, there are massive differences. Often a lot of the features only make sense when you're big and popular, and I think many start ups design for them prematurely. That was my point.
- vaksel 17y agoyeah I understand that, but the thing is that Mint didn't really have competition when they started. So they wrote their own ticket. If you try to go after Mint now, coming out with just one bank and a crappy design won't get you anywhere. Sure you can release, but you won't get the right level of adoption, until you catch up to your competitors.
- aberman 17y agoSo maybe the point is to find a small enough niche where you have little competition, and build something that fills that tiny niche/solves that core problem very well (and nothing more). And you can expand from there with features, etc. to build a big company? I don't know, but that makes a lot of sense to me...
- chris100 17y agoYou are 100% correct and 100% wrong. Before Mint existed, it felt crazy to try to compete against personal finance software. Intuit Quicken, they had a laundry list of features. Somehow, someone saw a niche that this gigantic tools failed to address. The beauty of the startup is that if you focus on the right micro-segment (aka a niche), you can grow very quickly and eventually topple the incumbent Goliaths.
- laut 17y agoIn many years there will be big companies that are small today. How has "the game" changed that now you need certain features and you didn't back then, whenever then was? Why would everyone need all those features that is on "that huge feature list"? Not everyone needs the same things.