Microsoft and Apple. Does anyone remember how they got started? - Paul Buchheit

@Paul there are always good examples of companies that succeeded that way. There are way more companies that make it on their own without this tech community. One needs to choose carefully imo. FF seems to have take the "Scoble" route it seems. Which can be fine and a very smart thing to do. But that doesn't mean it's always the best path. There are many alternative paths which can be very successful too. Just think about Easyjet, Gary Vaynerchuk Wine TV? Google Ads (you would know better than I could ;-) ) - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander, I'm not suggesting that there is any one right way. I think _who_ the early users are is less important than the fact that you have them. Also, Google is not really a counter-example -- early usage was very much among the tech crowd. - Paul Buchheit

Aha, I wasn't sure what you meant by that, thank you. I tend to disagree with you on the who part. In my own experience, both startup and corporate, if your development cycle is driven by the early adopter crowd, then it is really important to get this right. Technologically driven early adopters for example are often (not always) feature driven. But if you have a service driven early adopter, he will be looking at integrating the entire experience into his life/work. Very different views. - Alexander van Elsas

The Google ads example was a guess, I never followed that closely at the time (hence the remark you would know much better ;-) ) But Easyjet is a good example I think. A small revolution in consumer/business process thinking complemented by smart web based software. They never needed the tech early adopter to be successful. They addressed a consumer need form the start and did it with excellent execution. - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander - I love this post! Our startup is looking to squarely take on mainstream users, so although getting the tech crowd to buy-in early is important early, it is just a part of the overall long-term business plan. We did quite well to be picked up by most of the top blogs when we launched our private beta (alpha) over a month ago. But we are well aware that this is a long term race/business. We are going for a simple and easy way for "normal " people to get acquainted with the best blogs. - Scott Lockhart

@Scott thank you, appreciate it. And good luck with your startup ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

"The startup fails because it went to build a cool tech solution for a problem that didn’t really exist" - the crux of this problem I think. Finding a real problem, solving some or all of the problem and thus providing value is tough. But that is the only way to success. - Brian Sullivan

(cont..) Regator is based in Atlanta and maybe that lends itself to looking at things differently. We are working local media and the thousands of blogs we have on the site that our editors have hand-picked to help get the word out. We definitely love the A-list tech blog coverage don't get me wrong, as we do have features that appeal to more advanced users and we are doing some unique things that apparently have been newsworthy :), but at the end of the day we're trying to make a business around a website that my mum or dad can easily use and enjoy. - Scott Lockhart

BTW, it's not the tech crowd vs. the rest. There are many shades in between. In Germany, a recent study found out, that 3/4 of German tech savvy youth did not know what "blog" or "weblog" means. So I absolutely agree with Alexanders focus on the point of "integrating the entire experience into his life/work". That's what we should aim for. - Benedikt Koehler

@benedikt, exactly. Although I do suspect that the average tech early adopter in Silicon Valley might be a bit different from other early adopters. They use: Twitter, Pownce, Friendfeed, Dopplr, Seesmic, Yelp, del.icio.us, Digg, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Disqus etc. (I could go on for a while). These people live and breath (social media) technology, and that makes this crowd a bit more unique than the rest ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Great piece. I'm always surprised at how many people in SV can't understand the difference between here and the rest of the country/world. Thanks for sharing this! - Jeremy Toeman

Jeremy thank you ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

Threading different comment threads together as they both have some interesting remarks ;-) http://friendfeed.com/search... - Alexander van Elsas

I'll definitely agree with Louis that the feedback from our private beta users and bloggers who covered us you really couldn't pay for. That said, we have incorporated pretty much all of it into the site, the exceptions being where it just was a gratuitous feature. We have had many a discussion on how to balance our site and not skew it completely tech. There are already so many good sites like that and that's not really where we want to be. Happy/relieved to see others thinking the way we do... - Scott Lockhart

As a mainstream Friendfeed user, not a "tech" insider, I have to say that Elsas' points ring true. Community is being created, but is it just for the technorati, or is is truly an invitation to join an ever expanding circle? - Michael Muller

Good points. As much as I enjoy peering in on the valley from afar, I did well in LA, and now, here in Texas, there are companies that startup and have success all the time, and they don't mind being off the SV radar. It's just a different radar, but it's the same currency. - Dean Terry

I love this part -> "True enough, I believe that too, but my point is that the early adopter you really need just isn’t located in Silicon Valley." - andy brudtkuhl

Alexander: I disagree with the Google example. Google succeeded BECAUSE it got the early adopters hot and bothered. It took me two years to convince my dad that Google was better. In the early days ONLY early adopters thought it was cool. In fact, this is why Microsoft missed Google and why Alta Vista didn't care about it. - Robert Scoble

Robert, that was a bad example, as I already said to Paul (I wasn't thinking about Google search btw, but about Google adwords). But take my Easyjet example as a much better case where a different path lead to success too. - Alexander van Elsas

@Andy, I didn't say that literally did I (well I did ;-) )? My main point is that there are many breeds of early adopters, not just the "Silicon Valley" type. It's important to consider that when you launch a new startup. - Alexander van Elsas

BTW Robert, it was you that pointed me once to the example of Gary Vaynerchuk. A good example of someone that used a community to build a business ;-) - Alexander van Elsas

@Alexander it may not be literal but when I release something I could care less about Silicon Valley and more about the community for which the product was developed.. - andy brudtkuhl

Alexander: yup, agreed. another example might be why Orkut (designed in SIlicon Valley) took off in Brasil, but not in the US. - Robert Scoble

Another example would be Meebo. But instead of getting +me+ as an early adopter, they did get a lot of other people. The CEO told me they specifically put features into that product to serve them. Now they have more than 20 million users, even though I haven't seen Louis or me or Arrington get excited about them. - Robert Scoble

Threading in another comment from Robert: I’m not really a good early adopter anymore, either. I look at all of you to tell me what is surviving on your machines. This is why I missed Evernote. I’m not going to be first to try things. There are simply WAY TOO MANY things to try (I have a folder of more than 1,000 things I haven’t tried yet). One of the reasons I use so many social networking services is to have you signal when something really is worthy and I’ll try those. This is why you shouldn’t just go for the A list, and should get EVERYONE to talk about your product. If you do that then the A list pays attention. - Alexander van Elsas

And my response to him: @Robert, that may be so, but you still have a very powerful brand to get the word out. You prove that every time when you point people towards new services, blogs, or whatever. And that is very important too! - Alexander van Elsas

Alexander: I'm only powerful if I listen. - Robert Scoble

Apple and MS originally catered just to techies, but back then normal people didn't own computers. - Gabe

Gabe, that's even worse -- they targeted weird users on a tiny platform. For the first couple of years, the only people who used Gmail were Google employees, not a very diverse userbase :) - Paul Buchheit

I think it is inaccurate to say Apple/Microsoft catered to techies - I don't think the equivalent of that category existed then. Hobbyists I think is more accurate. - Brian Sullivan

@Brian, you have a point. However, what is common between the two eras is the importance of social networks or groups (like the Homebrew club or the Boston Computer Society then or online groups today) as well as the influential writers/materials (like the TTL Cookbook then or some blogs today). Passionate infliuentials and early adopters mattered then and matter now. - Loren Heiny

@Paul diverse enough as Gmail solved a problem for Google employees. It addressed a need. A need that could easily be translated mainstream. And for that reason it has become an excellent product. - Alexander van Elsas

I think we have a harder time noticing the non-SV success stories because SV is where the megaphone is. I think if you look at any barometer that matters you'd find there are plenty non-SV startups that do quite well. - Steve Spalding

I wonder if anybody has done analysis -- is it possible that non SV startups actually do better statistically in the medium/long run? - Brian Sullivan

Alexander, if GMail worked for that reason, are SV early adopters the easy way to failure, or is it lack of mainstream need? Maybe you need to revise your title. - Bruce Lewis

Bruce. the post was about the way new startups tend to copy each other's roll out strategy. Write code, get into contact with A-list bloggers, ensure the same early adopters get on board, and then mostly fail to leave this Silicon Valley community. I'm not saying this can't work. I'm saying that if you want to become main stream you need much more than that. One thing is to consider not using the path just describe, but find early adopters nearer to the mainstream crowd you were aiming for. - Alexander van Elsas

In the case of GMail I suspect the developers were addressing a consumer need from the start (write a much improved web-based e-mail client). It may have been tested by Googlers at first (which is fine obviously), but the path to mainstream was there because they were addressing a consumer need. And obviously Google had already the distribution power to move beyond the Silicon Valley community. But if you are a new startup and your first 50K users are from this community it's much harder to break out. - Alexander van Elsas