
Ask HN: Breadth vs. Value in product design - ErikVandeWater
Paul Graham&#x27;s 5th piece of advice in his post &quot;Startups in 13 Sentences&quot; was &quot;Better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent.&quot;<p>But it seems many startups go broad to start (Reddit, Mint.com, Google) and have succeeded, so how would a startup founder decide whether to go broad with their design vs targeting a particular user segment?
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endswapper
You appear to be missing the point of the sentence and your question
demonstrates this.

It's more valuable to have unbridled enthusiasm from a few users, than a bunch
of users who don't care, and would easily swap you out for an alternative.
Those enthusiastic users will be your champion, your marketing, your calling
card and perhaps your best sales presentation. I think that is
straightforward.

Using your Google example, their focus, initially was very narrow - search.
Anyone might need it, but if you do that one thing really well, they'll love
it and other people will hear it and have to try it.

It sounds like you are twisting up model, focus, opportunity and value.

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ErikVandeWater
Search is actually very broad. Who is the target market for "search"?
Basically everyone with a web-enabled personal computer at the time. Google
addressed everyone with search needs mostly equally: if you wanted to get the
weather, or search for an academic article, Google would serve the need. This
is as opposed to say Amazon, which started with a narrow target market by only
offering books.

~~~
valhalla
I think it's important to remember that none of these startups were as popular
now as in the beginning. This is obvious, but it's hard too think back to the
late-90s and put ourselves in the metapsychology of a user who was
evangelizing Google when (basically) everyone uses Google now. Same with
Reddit and Mint.

I first heard about Google from my 1st grade teacher. He bought us 1984
Macintoshs (with his own money) to use since our school didn't see the point
of buying new computers to teach first graders computer skills in 1999 (the
irony is not lost on me...). When he saw me using Alta Vista one day in our
school's computer lab, he stopped me mid-search, logged onto Google and the
rest is history.

My teacher was kind of a hippie and had spent time on an Indian Reservation as
a photographer. He was obsessed with astronomy and took us on field trips to
the Griffith Observatory at night where attendance was extra credit. I don't
know if this is representative of Google's initial user base but it wouldn't
surprise me if it was.

TL;DR: It's almost impossible to tell in hindsight who the few users were
especially when a company is ubiquitous. Needless to say, it seems to be the
best way to succeed

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PaulHoule
Is Reddit really broad? It seems to cater to a certain sort of person.

For instance, my mother in law is into Oprah Winfrey and might get that itch
scratched by something a bit like Reddit but that is appealing to her. Maybe
Pinterest is closer to that.

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valhalla
I agree. It wouldn't surprise me if Reddit's initial subreddits were narrow
and reflected the interests of the founders and early employees – they created
a proto-listserv for people like them and it grew from there

