As more and more entrepreneurs start building what Fred Wilson referred to as second derivative companies, I think they run a big risk of designing a product/service that is targeted at too small of an audience. Too many companies are targeting an audience of 53,651 . That’s how many people subscribe to Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch blog feed. I’m a big fan of Techcrunch – and read it every day. However, the Techcrunch audience is NOT a mainstream America audience.…
As I evaluate new [Web.20] startups these days I’m finding it harder and harder to see the big ideas that will appeal to a large, non-geek consumer audience.
Shimon Sandler on May 17th, 2006 at 7:26 am
To use an expression from Seth Godin….”Purple Cow”.
That’s what marketers today need to create. Something unique, and remarkable, like a purple cow. Focus on the niche, not the mainstream. Then wait for the niche to spread the idea to the mainstream.
Marketplace.MD Update on May 17th, 2006 at 7:58 am
[LEVEL3] Magic Numbers…
53,651 is not the magic number….
Rafiq on May 17th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Excuse me?
K T Cat on May 17th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
The web is all about information exchange. After a while, novel ways of exchanging information tread the same ground as the ones before. Podcasts and YouTube and internet radio and blogs and websites and… There’s only so much time in the day to gather information.
You can’t eat information and you can’t drive it. In the end, someone still has to bend metal and plow fields.