Design for the Crest; Build for the Swell
TL;DR: Appease Silicon Valley with “cool kids stuff”, but build something that will scale to the masses.
Om Malik’s written a few times recently on the importance for Silicon Valley to look beyond itself in terms of vision and product - a topic also picked up by Nick Bilton at the NY Times. From Om:
“It is hard to argue with Nick, when his testimony includes $6 million in funding for an app called Twist, which essentially allows you to alert people that you are running late for a meeting and shows your position on a map. His testimony also includes Blackjet, an affordable private jet solution. These are services solving what could be labeled Silicon Valley’s first world problems.”
This is undeniably an issue the Valley faces, but I have a mindset I use in product development that I thought I’d share. I think about designing products that have the “buzzy/sexy” feature-set that the 415/650/408 community will look for and care about, yet a set of value propositions designed for a much wider audience.
Here is an example of what I mean, using my own product, NextGuide, as reference:
Silicon Valley pitch/value props (“the crest”):
- Search Netflix/Hulu/iTunes/Amazon all at once for where shows are available to stream.
- Create and share a Social TV profile
- “Evernote + Pinterest + TV Guide”
“Real World” pitch/value props (“the swell”):
- Never miss a show again with simple email reminders
- Find out what shows and movies your friends are watching
- Learn about new Fall shows and get email alerts for new episodes
So above, “the crest” appeals to a Silicon Valley lifestyle where things are more “social”, there’s less watching of Live TV, and everybody knows who Evernote and Pinterest are. Whereas “the swell” has mainstream value proposition, where most TV audiences watch live TV (>50% of TV watching in DVR households is still live!), and the appeal of an email about new episodes is a real value proposition.
If you are an entrepreneur struggling for success with either population, give a re-think to your core value proposition. It gets very easy to view the world with a myopic lens, where every data point reinforces your own belief. But my most reassuring one came this weekend when my mom emailed me about NextGuide having sent her a reminder about a show she wanted to watch - that’s a great sign I’m traveling down the right path.
Make sure to surround yourself with people who aren’t like “us” in Silicon Valley. People who aren’t on LinkedIn or Twitter, who don’t know about Google Glasses, who might even share an email address. They are the ones you’ll need millions of to make a big success. Just make sure you can also package it up for the Silicon Valley ecosystem to digest and approve while you are at it.
