The secret formula to all successful apps/businesses

Uber entered the dominant taxicab field with a service that essentially does the same thing; but within years they were able to drive the taxi cartel out of business.

What did these companies do that made them so successful? Or in general, how is it that companies like Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram succeeded while Vimeo, Friendster, and Flickr failed.

Answer: They made the process of doing a task users were already doing much, much easier. Lets examine Uber. They didn’t really create anything new, but rather built on something that was already existing. The original process of calling a cab to go from point A to point B involved (1) Go outside to stand on the street, (2) flailing your arms around if a cab ever came by, (3) hope the cab was empty so you could get a ride, (4) hope the driver new how to get to the destination in the fastest way possible, and worst of all (5) carry around a wad of cash to pay the driver PLUS a tip. On the contrary, with Uber, to go from point A to point B you (1) Whip out the app and press a button. That’s it. Now imagine yourself having to choose between the cab and Uber — which one would you choose?

I think a lot of founders miss this key to success. They try to create some revolutionary product that they hope would amaze their users. But just think about: if your product is not making my life easier, why would I need it? I don’t need any extra accessories in my life. However, if what you’re building makes my life easier, it allows me to do something that I’m already doing in a much faster way, then of course I would use your product.

Here’s a list of successful business that followed this principle:

• Youtube
• Before Youtube: Send the user a video over email (assuming my email service allowed me to send a file that large). Have the person on the other end download it, load it in their super shitty windows media player.
• Youtube: Upload a video to a site with a link you can send to anyone
• Yelp:
• Before Yelp: Sift through the fat stacked Yellow Pages that I obviously carry around with me everywhere I go. Restaurants are listed by name, so I’m not even sure the store I’m looking at is the cuisine I even wanted. Then go to the store not knowing if they have good food or not
• Yelp: Type in the cuisine in the app and see the closest restaurants near you organized by quality.
• Instagram:
• Before: Take a picture with my Nikon camera (assuming I had one) and upload it to my computer. Use photoshop (assuming I know how to) to apply a nice filter to make it look pretty. And then finally upload to Facebook or something and be the awkward guy that posts there.
• After: Take a pic, swipe to add a filter, and click “post”.

I hope you see the trend here. None of these ridiculously successful businesses created anything new. All they did was build upon something that people already do by creating a tool that makes that task easier.

TL;DR:

The only reason I would EVER use your product is if it makes my daily life easier.