One of the most frustrating things for me is to be talking with a partner in a project (creative or non-creative) and be told that we should do something one way because that’s what everyone else is doing or because the market dictates that we have to solve a specific need. Specifically, I have been working on a podcast (severe back burner) for two years (Record Store 2016 Baby!!!!!) and everyone tells me the same thing when it comes to monetizing the thing: “How are you going to get advertisers,” then they ask, “Who is going to listen to it”? One, I don’t do it for money so I don’t care about monetization(I will try to get paid for the effort I put in, but I do it because I enjoy doing it). Two, I don’t care who is going to listen to it because it is a project where I get to work with my friends and talk in a structure form; the final outcome, I have their voices preserved for all history and our crazy ideas. I have a personal snapshot of our minds at a specific age – a portal back into the past.
Back to monitization for a moment, all podcasts use the same model for income: advertising (everything in the universe uses this except subscription services); yet, industries do the same thing (if Business A makes money doing Thing Z in way ZYX, then Business B will do their Thing X in way ZYX since it is safe and already proven to be successful). This copycat mentality plagues all walks of life. In order to get a book deal, you need an agent, to get an agent you need to prepare a query letter and provide certain materials based on the agent’s requirements (all utilize query letters) – this is an industry standard.
Now, the book example isn’t a problem cause it allows the writers of the world to easily move from agent to agent without killing themselves over writing a query (except each query gets rewritten, at least, that’s what I do – gotta personalize that shit). The root of my problem is the sale of a product. When the smart phone introduced feature X, most phones had feature X shortly afterwords. Android looks painfully similar to iOS and vice versa. Windows phone was unique in how it handled navigation and use (I have one, it is easy to use and is from six years ago and still doing the things I need it to do), yet, the Windows Phone OS is now dead. Did it fail because the phone didn’t make calls? Was it cause they were late to the party? Or was it because it was too different? No one will know. In the end, we end up with X options in the world and all look the exact same with minor tweaks.
What I do know is that you have to be careful of using market research to design a product. Unfortunately, the market only knows what exists in the market today. So if you go to a bunch of people and ask them what they want to see in product X, they will respond with 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 but what you miss is that they can only count to 10. While your creatives/engineers are thinking all the way to two hundred thirty six. You should poll the market, but you should pitch them ideas they haven’t comprehended so that you solve a need they didn’t know they had.
This concept works for all creative pursuits. The moment you start bending to the market and trying to satisfy their existing needs, you are behind the curve. Everyone else in the world is able to read the same market as you, which means, you are competing against thousands of other products that are about to come out. That’s the danger with building products off of the market’s desires. So, my argument is simple, stop listening to the market and try to solve a need you have personally. Throw your passion into it and keep revising it until you hit something people want. Just don’t go to the market and say: “What can I build for you?” The moment you do that, you are doing the same thing as N people. So differentiate your product by truly creating something unique that you are passionate about.