Product Development: Drive or Hitchhike?
This essay is inspired by the story of Everpix, a photo software company that had started out very well but eventually went out of business with debts, and it looks like many tech companies in product/app development might in some way relate to this story. While I don’t intend to deliver a “look-at-them-and-don’t-do-like-them” sermon, some interesting nuances of the app start-ups’ success and failure can be noted as we reflect on the Everpix story. Whether you’re in a product/app business as a stakeholder, or whether you want to learn more about the trends that can impact your future as a tech professional, this read will hopefully give you some food for thought.
Technology and/or Methodology + Personal Need = New Software Product
Let’s start from the beginning. How does it happen that an individual gets an idea to come up with a product or an app? It quite often originates in this individual’s personal need to have an app that would help him or her do the things they need to do, or enjoy doing. Everpix started as a convenient solution for its founder to store and organize many photos. Another handy example is Facebook: it also took a start in a personal need of its founder, in a way. Not exactly personal though, it was rather a collective need of a campus community that he picked up from. Quandoo, our restaurant reservation platform, might have started out as someone wanted to book their dinner table in a more convenient manner. One other common trend for the products that stem from an individual’s need is that they catch a good ride on the bandwagon of some technological or methodological/social/cultural trend. Everpix thrived on the mobile technology because people with smartphones can take many-many photos and stash them on the web. Facebook took advantage of technology as well: with Internet, everyone wanted to keep in touch online, and the movement with social networks started about 11–12 years ago. Quandoo takes advantage both of a technological and non-technological trends: smartphones + people’s need for fine dining experiences (the latter being boosted in ways the exact description of which would go beyond the scope of this essay).
One might say that many people get an idea to develop an app or a product not out of their personal need, but as they analyze the market and decide that this app is bound to succeed. While it might sound true, there’s a point to note. Imagine you are a software geek, and suddenly you decide that you want to create an app for expectant mothers to track their nutrition patterns. Well, if you are technically not supposed to ever be pregnant, you would hardly know which things matter to expectant mothers, what nutrition should they take, how do they want this app to look, and how would it be convenient for them to use it. In this particular case, one would be better off if their wife — or whoever of female gender who’s close to them :) — is expecting a baby.
But this would be an indirect report, not your own intrinsic need, so if your wife is not available to provide guidance about the app development, you might have some crucial things done wrong. I leave it up to your imagination as to what might go wrong in this case 🙂 It’s always more authentic to create a helpful tool or an app from scratch based on one’s own needs and experience. Then, next goes a question for product stakeholders: who would need my app or my product? Naturally, people with the similar needs. People who need to store and organize their photos. People who want to be in social networks. Or, as with Quandoo, people who like to eat out and who want a convenient connector tool with restaurants. What is the decisive success factor for such app/product companies then? More and more people who have the same need. As long as there’s no other way for photo management, they will pay for the service. We’ve all witnessed the media hype about social networks as more and more people get to use them. But here’s the catch: while in general there’s one need, people have their personal varieties of this need. On the other hand, technology is changing all the time. Social and cultural trends are evolving and changing as well.
Drive or Hitchhike?
It seems there are two ways to continue thriving and staying on top of what’s happening: to drive or to hitchhike. The hitchhiker’s way of development would be related to following the lead of new technologies and new trends, and catching their wave once you’re already done with the initial stage of starting out a product. The driver’s way of development would seem more natural to those who nurture their products. In a way, they do it not only for their clients, but for themselves. That’s something I’ve touched upon in the essay Why People Don’t Understand How to Use Your Software. If one finds a great personal delight in slick graphic designs and spends lots of time perfecting them, this doesn’t mean that the clients would appreciate it. They might not be infatuated with that part. What if they want a just-enough convenient app and find their personal delight not in admiring graphic designs, but in fishing, or in hiking, or, well, in dining? It might seem outlandish but there are many-many web-sites and applications that stay afloat for many years with their bulky user interfaces. They do their job and function well, and the clients are comfortable with them as long as they fulfill their primary need. Then, as a product stakeholder, you’d have to weigh the priorities and make choices. But, well, the point is that you do love nice web designs. What can you do to satisfy your own personal need for delivering a product that stands to your internal expectations without making an overkill, if your clients do not seem to care much about it? That’s where we come to the part that’s called nurturing the like-minded.
Imagine if everyone in the world were a geek who wouldn’t buy into just function, but wanted it to be wrapped into a super nice form? That would mean that your potential market reach would be the whole world!
This idea is not new. Over the recent years, software products have been dancing along with technology. Technology is the primary law-maker. Smartphones and mobile devices are the most obvious examples. But what if technology becomes all used-up at some point? What if too much start-ups and products oversaturate the market, and there’s hardly any lucrative niche left where one can fit with their product? Here it comes to some different things. If you truly intend to come up with a groundbreaking product, you need to be the firestarter, turning the users into your like-minded people. Of course, not many start-ups possess this power. They mostly continue to feed on the technological breadcrumbs. What happens then if technology gives no new major spurts? There’s an option to strike open narrower and narrower niches by communicating your point-of-view to more and more people. Turn them into your faith, sort of. The prerequisite is to start with the narrow niche, but then once you’re settled in there, excavate it, and make it wide. This involves going beyond technology. You need to pass on your worldview — as well as your well-being-, culinary-, or dining-related philosophies:) — as far as possible, starting the movement that would engage more people. At one point or another, if product stakeholders are not that absorbed in the product, as the Everpix guys were, they would become aware of the need to innovate by thought leadership. It’s obvious that any software product company is changing and evolving with time, and rest assured there’s no way one would stay alive stalling with the same product for 5, or even for 3 years. When technology remains at a standstill, it takes even more to be innovative and to nurture the needs in people that are similar to your own needs. It’s far easier with shoes or with furniture. One can go on for years producing them. Software development is so tricky and demanding that it requires a not only technological innovation to succeed and to stay afloat.
Once I voiced a concern about software guys’ being overly self-absorbed to a friend. He went all indignant and retaliated: “Do you think we are that selfish? So, we only do things for ourselves, that’s what you think?” Of course, it’s not about selfishness. It’s about passing on your lifestyle and your culture to more people. If, from inside, you feel that there IS a delight in what you do, you will wholeheartedly proceed to sharing this passion with other people making them your followers (or friends). You need to make it easy for people to follow you, as in this viral video by Derek Sivers.
But be aware that there’s a limit to how many people one can turn into their faith. Company growth in sales and in profits will be determined only by that, at the end of the day. Are you doing everything to spread the ethos of your app or product to the world? Are you able to be not only a product or an app dev company, but a mini-media company in a way? If not, what can be done to make your forte appealing to others? Which stories can be shared in an authentic and sincere manner? What I’m talking about is a fluid conjunction of marketing, public relations and organizational culture projected on sensitivity to people’s needs, all in the context of software development. If you are able to use all of those to your best advantage, and be agile in the sense of continuous problem-solving, then a happy long life awaits you and your software products (or apps:).
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This story has been re-written from an earlier version.
