I recently began to read more developer related literature. The main mistake that many developer shacks make is create a product that targets a nice fat market sector with loads of other developers(for example, Palm OS Sudoku games). They think that a big sector contains enough cash for everyone; even if a few big companies already invaded it.
But is it really so? Just look at the comic below:
As you can see, there are two(or more) pretty big players with pretty heavy arms fighting one another. In addition, there is tiny little you on the floor – any of the two could easily squash you with a single step. Woo-hoo.
Entering a big market can work if you have a new hyper feature(like Eric Sink’s Winnable Solitaire) or a smart marketing approach(Dmitry Grinberg’s WarpSpeed). However, you are always at a risk of being squashed. Syrius Dire Services et al could have squashed WarpSpeed if they would have lowered their price and would have begun marketing about how screen noise can be quenched, and Winnable Solitaire would have been easy prey for the established Solitaire makers.
OK, lets agree that you can’t enter big markets. But are small market segments worth it? OK; they produce less sales than big sectors, but they are way to small for a big company to touch. For example, I can’t imagine a huge Palm OS software house(think DataViz) go after a tiny sector which brings in like 500$ per month(100 sales at a price of about 10$). However, for a small one-man ISV, having four such products means a nice income of 2000$ or more!
So, when wanting to enter a huge sector next time, better think about if it’s really worth it. If you have an unique idea and a bit of spare cash, try it. But if you lack any of the two, better don’t…
What do you think?
Related posts:
[...] Entrepreneurship • The Little Detail that Matters for Small Retailers • Entering Overfilled Market Sectors • Naming a business, product or service • Buhing an Online Business [...]
All solitaire games has the same basic set of features. And the “Winnable” idea does not seem to be very original.