The product I'm going to develop comes out of a necessity for me. It is something that I need and that I would use. This is a good motivation to start working on it. If no one out there would be using it, at least I will. It might sound like sour grapes and it probably is. But the need is nevertheless there.
Filling a need is a great way to start. Many people start a product just because they have a cool idea. Well, unfortunately I had so many cool ideas and, in the end, I always ended up not believing in them. There has to be something pragmatic. Something that fixes a real life problem.
My product at the moment is just in my mind. To my knowledge, there's nothing like this on the market, although there are some products that come close to it. But don't start thinking it's something to do with rocket science. It won't be as revolutionary as the sliced bread either. It's a niche product. And that's why I think I might work. I don't want to conquer the world. I just want to sell some software and make a living. I must say, I wouldn't complain if, as a side effect, I become a millionaire. Ha!
I'm kidding.
In fact, the product I have in mind is quite simple. As I said, it's all in my mind, so I can't talk about it too much. In fact I'll try to keep it in the realm of the abstract as much as I can. And that's simply because I would hate to waste all the effort I'm going to put in developing this application, just to discover that someone else beat me to it by reading my blog.
Hopefully as the product takes shape, I will share more about it.
In the meantime, this blog will be a testimony of my effort and of everything that goes into delivering a product to market, supporting it, making money ... or not. It will also be a testimony to my openness, which is one of the key statements in my business philosophy.
And the first thing I will change is the "we" to "I". Reading back my first entry, I realize how ridiculous it sounds. We are doing that, we are going to blah blah. I must be very honest with you. At the moment there's no "we". It's only an "I".
People use the "we" in the idea that this will create the impression of a bigger company. Customers don't trust one man bands. They want an army of people developing and supporting the product and being there for them.
And it's true, the bigger the company, the more guarantees you have. The less likely it is that the whole thing is a scam. The more likely it is they won't be out of business just after you buy the product.
Committing myself to openness and openly admitting I'm a one man band is a very dangerous strategy.
However, I was reading some statements from some companies that I knew they were one man bands. And this "we" sounds so ridiculous. Knowing there's an "I" behind it, you start wondering if the person behind is trying to mislead you or insult your intelligence.
And many times that's how I take it. In fact, whenever I want to buy a product, I try to find out as much as I can about the company. I tend to trust more companies that share more about them than those that don't.
I hope my future potential customers will think the same way. They will appreciate openness. Openness is actually a commitment to your customers. It's saying ... I have nothing to hide. I believe it to be the right strategy. Time will tell.
Thursday, November 09, 2006 3:25:14 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
