💎 Launch Imperfect Products
Hello! Adam Thornhill here. ‘The Podcast Guy’ saving you 10 hours a week.
Enjoy the 138th Podup, with special thanks to RhinoRating.
Today, we’ll dive into the best insights and ideas from My First Million.
Gmail launched without an address book. The iPhone launched without the App Store. Tesla rolled out cars before establishing a national charging network.
Each of these products faced skepticism for what they lacked at launch. But it didn’t matter. These giants bet on doing a few things exceptionally well, and won big.
Bull case for Apple’s Vision Pro
If I had a Mount Rushmore of blog posts that informed my way of thinking as an entrepreneur, this is one of them.
It’s a post called ‘If your product is great, it doesn’t need to be good’, written by Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail.
He wrote it the day after the iPad was released. Every review said it was a flop.
It didn’t have a keyboard. It didn’t have a USB port. You couldn’t do this with it. You couldn’t do that with it.
Despite this, Paul said a hit product doesn’t need to be good in every category. It just needs to be great in 1 to 3 categories.Â
You know what the iPad was amazing at? If you turn on your computer, it takes 1.5 minutes to be able to use it.
With an iPad, you just click the button and it’s ready to use. It’s instantaneous. It’s also great for watching videos on your coach.
With the Apple Vision Pro, people say it can’t do X. I’ve learned not to discount something because of those limitations.
Instead, see if it has any extreme strengths. If it does, it’s going to be a winner. So what is the Apple Vision Pro great at?
One is why would you ever go to a movie theatre? You can use it at home and everything you can see is the screen.
Another is using it on an airplane. It’s private - no one can look over your shoulder and read everything. It’s super, super cool.
Shaan Puri
Why it matters
If history teaches us anything, it’s that success starts with a laser focus on a few unique strengths. Don’t try to win the feature checklist competition. Play a different game. Create your unique value proposition and carve out a niche.
Next steps
Focus on your core strengths. Identify what makes your product not just different, but 10 times better?
Tell a compelling story. Highlight these benefits in your marketing. Why should users care about these features?
Seek constructive feedback. Engage early adopters to understand how these strengths solve their problems in ways nothing else can.
Your thoughts?
More from Podup
Here's the opposing school of thought: Launch, copy competitors, then innovate. That's how Meta kills its rivals.
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Quotes were pulled at different points of the episode. Sentences were left out to make the narrative more concise. Podup is not associated or affiliated with any podcast.