Question
When trying to generate critical mass for a website, which approach is better? Go for a global audience upfront or target a small niche first, generate hype, then expand?
Answer
I think the evidence seems to be in favor of narrow niche first. But there are ambiguities.
For UGC sites, it gets more interesting. Niche is both an asset and a liability, as with Quora and the techie early-adopter crowd.
As Facebook (Harvard/Ivy League first vertical) shows, it is possible to outgrow your initial-traction niche.
I can't think of any examples where a general strategy succeeded, except possibly Wikipedia. And maybe Google, if you consider searching the Web an example of a UGC business (since you are working off UGC in the broadest sense: all the Web's content).
For a niche strategy, you definitely want a "breadth on top of depth" strategy, because if you are not careful, doubling down on an initially successful vertical can trap you in a cul-de-sac. False-alarm product-market fit. Friendfeed is an example of getting trapped in the best known cul-de-sac: early adopters.
But on the other hand, this whole scheme is deceptive, because you can't really know upfront which particular niche will work for you. Heck, you don't even know which particular slicing/dicing of the potential market will yield your specific segment. That's why hunting for product-market fit is hard. It's not as simple as listing a bunch of hypothetical verticals and testing each in turn. Your factorization may be wrong.
For http://trailmeme.com )the product I manage for Xerox) the early signs indicate that education is potentially the right first vertical, and I am dealing currently with figure out what to do with this insight. It isn't easy. Maybe it isn't 'education' that is the correct label for what we're seeing, but something else.
Moore's bowling pin strategy that the Ben Pieratt mentions is not so much a normative strategy as a phenomenological phase that you can't control (Moore actually calls it 'Bowling Alley' ... one pin after another falling).
So the answer is "niche" but that's a completely useless answer, because the REAL question is "which niche, and how do I double down on it?"
- eBay (possibly apocryphal): Pez dispensers
- Amazon: books backlist
- Netflix: the canonical 'long tail' example
For UGC sites, it gets more interesting. Niche is both an asset and a liability, as with Quora and the techie early-adopter crowd.
As Facebook (Harvard/Ivy League first vertical) shows, it is possible to outgrow your initial-traction niche.
I can't think of any examples where a general strategy succeeded, except possibly Wikipedia. And maybe Google, if you consider searching the Web an example of a UGC business (since you are working off UGC in the broadest sense: all the Web's content).
For a niche strategy, you definitely want a "breadth on top of depth" strategy, because if you are not careful, doubling down on an initially successful vertical can trap you in a cul-de-sac. False-alarm product-market fit. Friendfeed is an example of getting trapped in the best known cul-de-sac: early adopters.
But on the other hand, this whole scheme is deceptive, because you can't really know upfront which particular niche will work for you. Heck, you don't even know which particular slicing/dicing of the potential market will yield your specific segment. That's why hunting for product-market fit is hard. It's not as simple as listing a bunch of hypothetical verticals and testing each in turn. Your factorization may be wrong.
For http://trailmeme.com )the product I manage for Xerox) the early signs indicate that education is potentially the right first vertical, and I am dealing currently with figure out what to do with this insight. It isn't easy. Maybe it isn't 'education' that is the correct label for what we're seeing, but something else.
Moore's bowling pin strategy that the Ben Pieratt mentions is not so much a normative strategy as a phenomenological phase that you can't control (Moore actually calls it 'Bowling Alley' ... one pin after another falling).
So the answer is "niche" but that's a completely useless answer, because the REAL question is "which niche, and how do I double down on it?"