You don’t know what you’ve got until you get it
While I was on holiday, Marc started creating a new product from scratch. He’d been walking around with a problem he wanted to solve and couldn’t find anything that he liked. Marc also wanted to try out the Scala programming language, to see if it would be worth using, and thought nothing helps you focus more than building an actual product.
I didn’t get it. But I gave Marc a hand anyway, because we had previously decided that QWAN values:
supporting someone who has a passion over discussing the business case at length
Variazione in scala di grigi by Eric Perrone
Why didn’t I get it?
Marc had a problem that he needed solving for himself, and he was obstinate about it, while I already had solved that thing for myself. Or so I thought…
We started building, and me not being that interested in the product helped. I kept asking: what is the Minimum Viable Product? What do we need to do to go into production, at least to start using it for ourselves? When can we invite others? How could we generate revenue out of it?
While we were building together, the idea for the product already started to shift. Even though neither of us could really use it yet. Just by looking at the things’ user interface, I’d say to Marc: “If I were to work with it, this-and-this would take me too much time (and turn me away)”, and then we’d have a discussion and things change.
Eventually, when we reached the point that we could deploy it in such a way that we could both use it, I started using it too.
And then I got it… I thought my needs were already covered by what I was using, but Marc’s idea was just slightly better than what I was using already. And that leads me to a puzzle: many potential users will have the same idea as me: they already have a solution that works for them, so they are not going to try this new thing out… How do you get someone who’s already got a solution to try out something new that might work even better?
August 25th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
just some ideas:
-identify the parts that you think are better and enlarge those, focus on marketing those, with a blog, make videos about it, tell about it etc.
- create a familiar environment. for example, firefox imports IE’s bookmarks when installing, users don’t have to start with an empty browser and can start playing with the new features IE doesn’t have (tabbed browsing in IE6)
- your solution to a problem might be superior, but if it is completely alien to the existing solution a user is using, you won’t get much traction. eg I never took the time to look at the Tapestry web framework because I always read it is so different then any other web framework, I look up against the effort I need to invest before I will learn its advantages over conventional frameworks
August 27th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
[...] You don’t know what you’ve got until you get it – Willem van den Ende ‘ (…) many potential users will have the same idea as me: they already have a solution that works for them, so they are not going to try this new thing out ‘ [...]
August 29th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Hi Nico, it’s very nice to hear from you again! Thanks for your well worded suggestions, they’re very helpful
It’s interesting to see how on the one hand we need to emphasize differences (better) while at the same time emphasize that it is not that big of a stretch from what people are used to.
February 20th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I love the photography it is so vivid!