

Don't build a Galapagos product - guiseppecalzone
http://josephwalla.com/dont-build-a-galapagos-product

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ekpyrotic
A lot of the statements within this article should be prefaced with "If you
want to build a large company,...", "If you want to support a team,...", or
"If you want to become more than an SME,..."

Targeting niches with tailored software is a perfectly rational -- and, dare a
say, I good -- strategy in those cases where you want to build a product that
will support (only) yourself economically. And you don't have 'Pinky and the
Brain'-esque fantasies. I know it is hackneyed, but bingocardcreator.com is a
fantastic example of this strategy put into practice.

Often, as these niches aren't already served by a professional product, there
is obvious space for monetization. There are also good opportunities to
develop quick expertise in that niche -- and as a result corner the market. To
boot, as the consumer base is smaller, you can often develop long-lasting,
personal relationships with your customers more quickly and more easily.

Of course, if you want to take the Internet by storm, don't build a repository
of crochet patterns, but if you want to see some quick money roll in (or build
up some basic business experience), I but don't see why you shouldn't. Advice
has to be viewed within context.

Blanket statements are antithetical to intellectual nuance.

Not everything has to be New York; sometimes the Galapagos Islands are quite
enough.

~~~
davidw
One of the things I realized when reading Start Small, Stay Small was that a
small enough niche is a _barrier to entry_ :

If your company/product dominates a market that is pretty small, and, say,
makes $100,000 a year from it, that's just not going to be an interesting
target for bigger companies with the resources to outcompete you.

So the trick is to dominate the niche, and then _automate_ , so that you're
making that money without a great deal of day to day involvement.

~~~
fxthea
Currently reading the book and when I came across that part a lightbulb went
off in my head, too - I never thought about it that way prior.

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timruffles
I'd guess you're more likely to fail building a product for 'everyone' than
for a niche. Therefore I'm not sure it's productive to worry about the size of
niches unless you really are only interested in building a huge company (which
seems not to be how most people who actually do build huge companies start
out).

If you're aiming for a niche you likely know something about it - or at least
can learn & validate quickly. If you're aiming for 'everyone' you're likely
either a) solving a non-problem that everyone has (e.g walking: Segway) b)
solving a problem nobody has (it's too small, or non-existent).

~~~
guiseppecalzone
I think the biggest concern is the day you try to expand beyond the niche.
When you do that, you realize that your product has been so focused on one
niche that it takes a major effort to grow your product. So, anytime I build a
feature I ask myself if this is something that we could scale to another group
of people outside of our niche.

Regardless, I think going after a niche is a great strategy. Crossing the
Chasm talks about the value of niches a lot. My major concern would be
building in a way that limits your future growth options.

------
malkia
There are products that are very popular in niche (or not so) places, and
practically no one heard of them outside.

As a game developer I've seen plenty of those. You'll hear about them only
from game developers, and other non-game developers almost never heard of
them. And these are not graphics/animation/movie related - they things for
managing/debugging memory/leaks/profiling/file I/O/etc.

I'm not sure how well these middleware providers do, but if they are small
teams (sometimes just one person), and they keep good history, and are able to
make $100,000 a year - then why not, especially if you can do other things in
the mean time.

Here is some (probably outdated, and not full page) -
<http://www.gamemiddleware.org/>

I for one love Deja Insight - but who has heard of it?
<http://www.dejatools.com/dejainsight>

It's awesome product (not free, not open source, and not VTune/prof
contentder) - but the nice GUI that it has, with tracking back makes it
awesome little product that I've been using for the last 3-4 years at the
studio (and only 2-3 more people, the rest of the studio doesn't know much
about it - they use other things).

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RyanZAG
I'd think the general way forward in a situation like that is fairly easy:
you've proven you have a team that can develop a great product for a niche
market. The next step is to identify a similar market that you can use your
technology and experience to break into, and then raise funding to get the
resources you need to break into that market. Raising funding at this point is
much easier: you have a proven track record and are profitable.

I think the article overstates the problem a lot - a Galapagos product is not
a problem, it's an opportunity in a good starting position to finding a
solution.

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blm
Or, you could end up with something unique that is not found anywhere else in
the world. And when people visit that "island" it helps people codify their
revolutionary ideas.

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pepijndevos
I need to think about this, and how it applies to <http://teamrelaychat.nl/>
Basically the service is only appealing to heavy IRC users. Others probably
prefer Hipchat or something similar.

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hayksaakian
With a ceiling for growth, you have to look in the other direction: can you
reduce costs?

Do you really need a full time team to work on this?

After v1.0 is done, can the rest of the team 'exit'?

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smogzer
And this post citing the obvious gets upvoted to the main page and the app
ecosystem for touchless user interfaces i built over 2 years and posted to HN
at the same time gets unoticed. Lame.

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jhawk28
Did Facebook "plan to scale beyond the niche"? Or were they just lucky?

