This is funny, and I applaud the effort. Someone has created an anonymous wordpress blog mocking the discussion around Josh Kopelman’s 53,651 post about TechCrunch and the startup whirlwind we are in.
Makes me kind of miss ShitCrunch. I never did find out who wrote that.
I’ll have more to say about Josh’s post soon, by the way.
Let’s set aside America for a moment. I know of at least a few hundred subscribers from India and Israel. I’m not too sure how many of those subscribers are actually American, let alone mainstream American.
The reality of the situation is this: If you can´t get the audience of 53,651 to be excited about your project..If you can win some of this audience and gain a critical mass there, I have a hard time thinking(with most startups)you will actually get to mass market critical mass.
A startup needs to create a beachhead with the prime target: tech savy, beta-hungry users who are willing to try new technology and deal with and accept all the bugs that comes with being a beta software release. These are the connectors who will often rave about a new product or service to everyone they know. They create the viral effect. Google, for instance, was once an engine that only the first tier tech savy user knew even existed. It then spread like a virus to become a mass market success. The reality is that a product, service,etc has usually moved through several tiers of users before attempting to cross the mass market chasm. However, I am willing to bet if you can´t get the early adopter market, you will have a hard time making it. Releases don´t often jump across tiers of users.
This is not to say that you “niche” produce a project for tech savy users. Often if you can satisfy their needs, you will have the functionality and feature set to satisfy a much broader set of users. However, you must begin with the users who are most willing to use a new product…and this is the “audience of 53,651″
I don´t find it ironic that many of the negative posts like that are made anonymously.
Issue is simple. Are the 53651 users early adopters to a mass market or are they unique amongst themselves, have no relation to the needs of the mass market, and should be considered a market in of themselves. Josh Kopelman feels the latter, his critics feel the former. Choose your side, argue with facts…facts usually determine the right answer.