I know it may be formulaic, but I love these lists of "rules" because I go down them one by one and say "yep, got that" or "nope, don't have that, now lets think about it."
I want to talk about rule #3. And lets use DuckDuckGo as an example. DDG is a competitor to google, and it is safe to say google is a "must have" because you can't find nothing on the web without it.
But is DDG a "must have" because it is providing the same service as google, and that service is a must have?
Or is DDG a "nice to have" because it is a slightly better version of the service Google is providing and thus I don't have to have DDG because if it disappeared I would switch to google and not feel much pain.
No criticism of DDG is meant here, I admire that business, and it was just the best example of the area where I'm not sure. For my personal business, there is an undisputed king of the hill, like google, but I know there is sufficient business for us to service niches. I just wonder if the king of the hill existing makes it impossible for your product to be a "must have", or if this is just a question of the nature of the product/service, and not the market dynamics of the space.
Well, if you look at the intent of the rule, it's put in because a "must have" product seems like a no brainer to buy, which gives almost guaranteed profit. If there already is a king of the hill, then it's no longer such a guarantee and thus no benefit to building something that would have been indispensable in isolation. This doesn't mean your product can't succeed though, it just means that you don't have that landslide advantage.
Some people have decided that DDG's privacy is a must-have while others have decided that (at least for now) it is a nice-to-have. And DDG is of course betting that more and more people will arrive at the conclusion that DDG's privacy "feature" is indeed a must-have. I know I'm on the verge.
I want to talk about rule #3. And lets use DuckDuckGo as an example. DDG is a competitor to google, and it is safe to say google is a "must have" because you can't find nothing on the web without it.
But is DDG a "must have" because it is providing the same service as google, and that service is a must have?
Or is DDG a "nice to have" because it is a slightly better version of the service Google is providing and thus I don't have to have DDG because if it disappeared I would switch to google and not feel much pain.
No criticism of DDG is meant here, I admire that business, and it was just the best example of the area where I'm not sure. For my personal business, there is an undisputed king of the hill, like google, but I know there is sufficient business for us to service niches. I just wonder if the king of the hill existing makes it impossible for your product to be a "must have", or if this is just a question of the nature of the product/service, and not the market dynamics of the space.