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4 Product Strategies for Success

I’m working on putting together one or more entrepreneurial ventures to keep me entertained in 2008. To both evaluate & generate ideas, I’ve put together a rough framework - below - of what I consider to be successful strategies. Any idea I’ve had needs to fit into one of these; if it doesn’t, there’s no business case to it. If I’m short on ideas on any given day, I can pick a strategy and apply it to any given product or market to kick start some thinking.

It certainly hasn’t made me wealthy yet (hooray for dayjobs!), but I’m still at it, and in the meantime you’re welcome to join me. YMMV!

1. Better Mousetrap: Modified product or proposition, same market (i.e.: price or feature competition)
   Ex: Google: simpler search, better results in an already crowded market
2. Re-purpose: Existing product, sold to new market segment
   Ex: Camelback hydration packs sold to the military for solidiers
3. Niche: New product aimed at a previously untargeted market segment
   Ex: Pugspot identifies pug owners as a monetizeable segment
4. Need: Identify an un-addressed, or unrecognized consumer need
   Ex: The banana guard (transporting a common, fragile food), or Overstock.com (liquidating old inventory)

EDIT: Note that I’m not including a definition of success here. Booth Google and the Banana Guard can be considered “successful” products - though the scales are obviously different.

business, design, marketing success

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Marc Andreessen’s Partly Wrong on Business Plans

This morning Marc Andreessen (PMARCA) blogs on “Why a startup’s initial business plan doesn’t matter that much.” In his post he argues primarily that (a) on a fundamental level, you can’t know how well your idea will do, and (b) executing well will require a bunch of changes during that opening period anyway.

Perhaps the problem isn’t business plans in general, but rather the type of plan. Certainly, a static, rigid document full of income statements and cash position projections has less relevance in today’s startup environment. However: there is a lot of thinking that one should do before launching a product, and a business plan is a good place to capture that thinking.

One one hand, there’s fundamentals: segmentation, a marketing plan of some kind (even if its the absence of a formal plan), etc. Then, there’s what we might consider “Business Plan 2.0″ features: contingencies and forward thinking strategizing. What if: your product takes off, such as in the case of iLike? What if: It doesn’t, and you have to switch target markets entirely?

Andreessen positions these what-if’s as justification for abandoning business plans entirely; IMHO they’re all the more reason to have a modern business plan. Well structured, forward looking, flexible thinking, and scenario analysis can only assist a startup, however shaky their initial concept may be.

UPDATE: Tim Berry questions Andreessen as well.

business, plans pmarca

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Too Bad

…that AmericasSearchEngine.com doesn’t exist. That would have nicely validated all of my ill-conceived sterotypical notions about the USA.

[from VALLEYWAG who has a great riff on how to compete with Google]

business, google, patriots search

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Craigslist’s Billion Dollar Question

Craigslist is lauded by users, and feared by newspapers, job boards, and the classified industry. I’d like to join in the adulation too, and would if Craigslist/Winnipeg wasn’t a ghost town.

So, from way outside the Bay Area, the big question that I’m asking is:

Can Craigslist grow outside of its core markets without changing its business model?

Craigslist may be well-entrenched in its strongholds, but to live up to the fears of the print industry, the hopes of the Craigslist fanbase, and Craig’s own philanthropical goals, it will need to find success outside of a few urban oases.

Fortunately, I have a way to answer this question: the Craigslist Tracker. Every night, I’m going to add the number of listings from cities for which Craigslist had a dedicated subsite on April 3rd. Over time, I’m going to aggregate and chart that data to see where Craigslist is growing, where its stagnating, and where its shrinking - and then mash it up with other data (population), and start drawing conclusions. In the meantime, you can follow the excitement in Times New Roman glory.

Now - please take note: this is not a Craigslist attack or slam. This is (I hope) a valid perspective from someone for whom the 1000-pound Craigslist gorrilla hasn’t materialized and revolutionized my life; I’m wondering if its going to, or if its going to be someone else, or if I’ll be squinting through newspaper classifieds for the rest of my life. Given the abyssmal quality of online classifieds around here (arrrrghhhhh) (gaaack) I’m sincerely hoping Craigslist takes root. I think the results of this study may be of interest to the print industy and other classifieds sites as well.

The other note I’ll make is the arbitrary “billion” dollar question. Billions are, of course, unimportant to a company that eschews the profit motive. A less catchy title might be “Craigslist: Will it become the dominant venue for commerce outside of its present, core markets?”

That’s it. Follow along, and stay tuned for updates.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that while I find Alexa stats inherently sketchy, I found this 3 year graph of Craigslist interesting. I assume that the downward slant is the same overseas weighting issue that’s similarly aggravated other North American focused sites, but it was interesting nonetheless.

business, classifieds, craigslist techfold

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