There's some sense in this, but it's all too easy to think small and end up small. You need to concentrate on making it work well for 1 demographic, as he says, but keep an eye out that you aren't excluding others or making meaningless decisions that hurt your product on the global scale.<p>If you concentrate on "indie bands and their music videos", sure, you'll hit the sweet spot for them. But you might have decided that limiting uploads to 8 minutes made sense because no music video will be longer than that. It makes sense from other standpoints, too, because it's easier to store, stream, and otherwise handle smaller videos.<p>But what about indie movie producers? Or kids with cats? Or ... Well, the billions of other video producers out there.<p>A friend of mine was recently upset that YouTube was limiting him to 15 minutes. He wanted to upload gameplay recordings, and splitting them into 15 minute chunks was a real pain.<p>Notch's Ludum Dare coding videos would also not have been allowed, and they were excellent watching. I had never heard of the video host, and might never hear of them again... Assuming I don't use them. And I might.<p>So don't blindfold yourself and work on niches. Work on the big picture, but be sure to make sure your product actually does work for some specific tasks.
I think hes right...<p>I created Lokenote.com as I saw people posting adverts on lampposts, but I think that was too vague an idea, so maybe my first go at Lokenote was too generic [ pinning a note to the map ].<p>I did also build it for a guy who delivers packages all day and wants to share notes with other drivers on how to get to teh right entrance at a building or property - so I need to get that guy to use my site and make it useful for his realworld problem.<p>Reality has this way of being unpredictable... which makes it interesting, right?
Hey Sahil, I usually love the design sense in all your products but the lack of contrast on that body text is killing me! I know it looks better that way, Please make it a little more readable!
Great post by Sahil (not me). In the consumer world, I fundamentally believe if you can solve a problem for a community, you will more easily reach product / market fit. Too often consumer apps go for the home run up front, but in the best situations, consumer sites have been built for a select audience, and then have organically grown. Facebook is a classic example - it started out as a dating site for Harvard, it resonated, then it grew naturally.
Nice contrast to Zappos' founder Tony Hsieh's[1]:<p><i>Whatever you’re thinking, think bigger.</i><p>But there is less opposition than it might seem. It is important to start small, but not stagnate on being small.<p>[1] <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/24/zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-on-delivering-ultimate-happiness/" rel="nofollow">http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/24/zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-on-d...</a>
Reminds me of a commercial I just saw:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcAp1ogn79g" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcAp1ogn79g</a>