Who's Building for Joe Kansas?
It's amazing how many companies here in the valley are building products without 1) a business model or 2) solving a real, existing need of your average American. There are plenty of companies solving pain points for very techy people but what about everyone else? What about Joe Kansas?
Who is Joe Kansas you ask? Well, he doesn't blog. Or digg. He's your average American. He's intimidated by technology. He uses the web to consume information (search, news), connect with friends (IM, email), entertain himself (music, video) and occasionally make purchases (products, tickets). If you can make something this guy 1) likes 2) will somehow find out about and 3) upon receiving it be able to understand/use, you may get meaningful adoption. If you can monetize that, you may have a business.
In general there are a lot of innovative things that have been/are being built in the valley. I think that there are opportunities for companies to de-tech this stuff, apply it to a pain, wrap a solid Joe Kansas compatible user experience around it, figure out the business model and distribute it to the masses. GreaseMonkey, for instance, is a good example of a web based innovation has the potential to be completely game changing but will never, at least in it's current state, leave techdom.
Just my two cents. I'm all about Joe Kansas. Build for him.
I agree completely. The Next Big Thing will be just like the Last one, and that will be whatever Joe likes. It doesn't have to be groundshaking innovation, it just has to help Joe do what he wants to do.
Posted by:Jon | March 25, 2008 at 12:14 PM