If you build it and show it, they might come.
On Building Products
While walking through his cornfield one evening, he hears a voice whispering, “If you build it, he will come.” He sees a vision of a baseball diamond in the cornfield and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (who in real-life died in 1951) standing in the middle. Believing in him, Annie lets him plow under part of their corn crop to build a baseball field, at risk of financial hardship. — Field of Dreams
Many technologists believe that if you build a good enough product, then users will automatically discover it, use it, and derive value from it; without “non-product”, external effort.
Or in other words, “If you build it, they will come.”
This article explains why I’m not a believer.
Detour: The User Life Cycle, Internals and Externals
There are three types or “states” of users:
- Never Users, who have never used the product
- Users, who are currently using the product, and
- Former Users, who have used the product in the past, but no longer do
Between each of these three states, there are three types* of “state transitions” (arrows):
- Acquisition, when a new user starts using the product for the first time
- Churn, when a user stops using the product, and
- Resurrection when a former user starts using the product again.
Acquisition and Resurrection are good. Churn is bad. Each of the arrows is influenced by both internal and external characteristics.
For example, Acquisition depends on both the quality of the product (internal) and its discoverability (external). An excellent product which is impossible to find will not acquire many new users.
Similarly, a poor-quality product will have high churn (internal), while competition from high-quality alternatives (external) will also result in current users churning out of the product.
The same applies to Resurrection. Pitching users to join again (external) and improving product features (internal) will likely motivate former users to resurrect.
[* The User Life Cycle state diagram can be made more elaborate with more states and more transitions. For clarity and simplicity, I picked the three-three configuration. ]
If you build it, will they come?
What has the “User Life Cycle” got to do with “If you build it, they will come”?
“Building” fundamentally influences internal characteristics and cannot directly influence externals like discoverability, competition or marketing. Hence, if you are a believer in “If you build it, they will come”, internals must dominate externals, or at least be sufficient to compensate for them.
For example, the product’s own “charisma” must both attract new users and re-attract former users without the help of growth and marketing. Externalities like competition must also be negligible. Such conditions might exist in very special situations but are rare in general.
Hence, I prefer the more cautious catch-phrase: “If you build it and show it, they might come”
Or in other words, make optimal and empirical use of both internal and external characteristics, as opposed to religiously betting on just one. And be ready to adapt if plans don’t work out.
All said and done, why clap with one hand when you’ve got two?
