And that's okay But you have to do it right

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As we clutch at every stone on the last stretch of cliff before the next breaking point of abstraction - after which we all hope to frolic on the plateau of a big, green field - we must be very careful with our strategy.

For every rock you grab onto, another one falls from above. The monopolists are kicking the mongrels out from under their feet, and all the other upstarts are falling further away. And you have just entered the market with something that you have whipped up to test the waters.


Minimum viable product is a good name, but it misses some important nuance. A nuance that would have helped ten years ago, but becomes really important as the market matures. Perhaps a better way to purchase paytm user data think about it is as a minimally differentiated product. A minimum viable product conveys the sense that as long as everything works well, provides the essence of functionality, and doesn't break too much, you can determine whether there's demand for the next version of what you've built.

It worked ten years ago because there was no point in building a cabin next to your house. There was too much open space to worry about that kind of inconvenience unless you wanted to be a social network or a photo-sharing app. And so you felt like you had the potential to succeed by almost simply describing what you thought people wanted and linking it to a sign-up page.

But not now! People have a choice! Mansions are wall to wall, with barely a gap between the eaves. That's why you need a minimally differentiated product. Or even a minimally viable and differentiated one at once.

You can afford to quickly establish the basics and iterate at speed. But your point of differentiation needs to be thought out in great detail. You want a working model that transcends boundaries without getting lost in the weeds in a few weeks, but what is your difference? That’s where you should have spent 90% of your time. You need to make such a compelling argument that people will spend the time they need to fight inertia and the desire to pass by the really good, mature product you’re delivering.

One way to increase your chances is to build something for yourself. If you read the month-long reflections of Jani Evacallio, who built Foam (a personal knowledge base of VSCode + GitHub), you'll see this dynamic in action. Jani didn't need "green fields" and big spaces - Roam Research, what he set out to perfect for himself, is still in a new and explosive growth.