Tim de Jardine | Blog

Seth writes an insightful blog post on the limits of meta.

Organisations or individuals who try to use a medium to write about a medium are eventually limited.

I have always thought that these types of pursuits apart from rare exceptions are sometimes quiet acts of desperation to gain authority in a field that they did not quite succeed in.

Some examples include:

• writing about writing
• blogging about blogging
• songs about songwriting
• A online business about how to succeed in an online business

Can anyone think of any other examples?

About 4-5 years ago, my business partner and I came up with the idea for a device to record exercises at the gym to track and record online in a software as a service model where people could actually measure progress. At the time this was radical thinking we could clearly see there would be a market in the future.

Nike has recently teamed up with gyms to provide integration between gym equipment and the Iphone. It is now only a matter of time that this type of integration will exist on anaerobic exercises.

The point is this:

We spent alot of time honing a business plan and talking to people and it seemed that some shared our vision, some did not. We even went to a few of the local business incubators in Wellington to pitch the idea and get some advice from “experts”. This was the wrong move.

The incubator was more interested in the “budget” or “board of advisors” than pointing two fresh-faced grads in the right direction. We clearly understood that these are important areas to address, but not at that time. We wanted to get the concept right, see if it would fly…This proved very frustrating.

The moral of the story is this: Dont expect any type of inspirational/visionary advice from these so called “experts”. They are only really there to sell consultancy services.

You are the visionary.
You are the one who sees the future.
These people are not entrepreneurs.

Two simple words with very different outcomes:

I can be successful OR happy

I can be successful AND happy

I can save the environment OR make money

I can save the environment AND make money

Successful people use AND alot.

Unsuccessful people use OR.

Where are your OR’s?

A popular buzzword among entrepreneurs (especially technologists) is the notion of crossing the chasm. This involves the shift in adoption from early adopters to a mainstream market. Based on Crossing the Chasm a book by Geoffrey A Moore this theory is relevant in a mass market psychology.

The problem with going for a mass market “sweep” is that it rarely happens anymore, especially in technology. There are an infinite number of choices for all consumers in a society increasingly dominated by clutter.

A more effective strategy is to push for a niche. Adopt the long tail. Kevin Kelly puts a good point that if you get 1,000 true fans you’ve got your living. Good in a small sense, but does this scale? The auction giant EBay is a niche product. Netting 3% of the internets users at any one time. Lets face it, there is no mass market in an increasingly connected world with no borders, there simply is too much choice.

The model has changed. For example if you are featured on a prominant blog such as techcrunch or a news network such as CNN early adopters and adopters will know of your existence. The challenge then comes not from adoption but to persuasion.

The idea of a mass market is an old-age myth of boom or bust, of a 20th century fantasy regarding a zero sum game. If you cannot sustain your business, then you need to rethink your strategy but if you want your product to be used by everyone, then start making it average.

The most important chasm that exists is one that is within your Niche. Crossing that involves a combination of acceptance, timing and hard-work. Cross from bleeding edge adopters to early adopters is ideal. Apple does this successfully with around 3% of the total computing market and billions of dollars in revenue.

Great Ideas alone don’t guarantee success. Original ideas don’t either. Success is accomplished using a combination of execution and more importantly timing. Why do I say timing? There were dozens of video sharing sites before YouTube. Dozens of web mail applications before Gmail and many social networks before MySpace and Facebook. What these successful iterations did was combine an already embraced concept and take successful elements of the old and slightly adjust and tweak the features to what users really wanted. The timing had to be right for these companies to succeed. Timing as in: features, the date, current events, market overview, morale.