1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,030 - As you're thinking about your opportunity 2 00:00:03,030 --> 00:00:05,060 in your first product, 3 00:00:05,060 --> 00:00:07,030 the best ones are the ones that have 4 00:00:07,030 --> 00:00:08,090 a very rapid adoption rate 5 00:00:08,090 --> 00:00:10,080 when they're successful. 6 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:12,050 So you're looking for something that, 7 00:00:12,050 --> 00:00:14,070 something that you're not going to have to drive 8 00:00:14,070 --> 00:00:16,060 a lot of demand for, but instead, 9 00:00:16,060 --> 00:00:18,050 just by people using your product they're going to say, 10 00:00:18,050 --> 00:00:22,050 "Wow, this is amazing," and they'll tell their friends. 11 00:00:22,050 --> 00:00:25,020 Or, it'll be a product that causes somebody to say, 12 00:00:25,020 --> 00:00:27,060 "Oh, I need to get somebody else using this 13 00:00:27,060 --> 00:00:29,060 "because I'll benefit even more if some of 14 00:00:29,060 --> 00:00:33,000 "the other people that I'm connect to use this." 15 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,040 That, again, works across any kind of products. 16 00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:37,030 But if you think about the best early marketing 17 00:00:37,030 --> 00:00:40,010 for a company that has no money to spend on marketing 18 00:00:40,010 --> 00:00:42,080 and advertising, word-of-mouth is the best. 19 00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:46,000 If you get people that are absolute, total raving fans, 20 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:49,040 love your product, think it's the most amazing thing ever, 21 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:51,000 it doesn't cost you anything to get them 22 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,050 to tell other people about the product. 23 00:00:53,050 --> 00:00:57,070 I just bought something the other day that's 24 00:00:57,070 --> 00:00:59,000 a product that I'd never heard about 25 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:01,020 from a company that makes a thing that allows 26 00:01:01,020 --> 00:01:03,070 you to change the temperature of your bed. 27 00:01:03,070 --> 00:01:05,090 And it's awesome for me because my wife likes 28 00:01:05,090 --> 00:01:07,040 it to be warm in the bedroom and I like it 29 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:08,080 to be cold in the bedroom. 30 00:01:08,080 --> 00:01:12,000 And for years we fight over the thermostat 31 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:13,090 before we go to bed. 32 00:01:13,090 --> 00:01:15,030 I never heard about this product, 33 00:01:15,030 --> 00:01:16,010 I didn't know anything about it. 34 00:01:16,010 --> 00:01:17,000 It's a brand new product. 35 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,050 A friend of mine who used it, 36 00:01:19,050 --> 00:01:21,010 basically the note that I got from him was, 37 00:01:21,010 --> 00:01:22,010 this changed my life. 38 00:01:22,010 --> 00:01:24,020 Like all of a sudden I had the best night's sleep 39 00:01:24,020 --> 00:01:25,030 I've had in a long time and I don't have 40 00:01:25,030 --> 00:01:26,070 to worry about the temperature in the room 41 00:01:26,070 --> 00:01:28,040 and the air conditioner and that sort of thing. 42 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:30,060 I have had no contact with the company, 43 00:01:30,060 --> 00:01:32,040 I just went online and bought the product. 44 00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:34,050 So that sort of word-of-mouth, think about that 45 00:01:34,050 --> 00:01:37,000 when you have something where one of your customers 46 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:40,040 or lots of your customers will say to other people, 47 00:01:40,040 --> 00:01:43,030 this product is amazing, is so powerful. 48 00:01:43,030 --> 00:01:46,000 The other dynamic that's really important 49 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:49,000 is try to figure out an adoption cycle that has, 50 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:51,060 what in the tech world is called virality. 51 00:01:51,060 --> 00:01:53,050 One of the first products that were like this, 52 00:01:53,050 --> 00:01:55,070 if people go back to the late 90s 53 00:01:55,070 --> 00:01:58,060 is an online email product called Hotmail. 54 00:01:58,060 --> 00:02:00,030 Where, if any of you were Hotmail users, 55 00:02:00,030 --> 00:02:02,060 at the very bottom of Hotmail, 56 00:02:02,060 --> 00:02:04,080 it actually had a line on it that says, 57 00:02:04,080 --> 00:02:07,030 if you want your free email, click here for Hotmail. 58 00:02:07,030 --> 00:02:10,010 That was their viral moment where people would get 59 00:02:10,010 --> 00:02:12,010 this email and they were like, oh I could use a free email, 60 00:02:12,010 --> 00:02:14,040 click, and now they have a free, web-based email. 61 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:16,060 If you think about services like LinkedIn, 62 00:02:16,060 --> 00:02:18,050 that sort of notion of network virality 63 00:02:18,050 --> 00:02:19,080 is really a key part of it. 64 00:02:19,080 --> 00:02:21,030 If you're on LinkedIn, the more people that 65 00:02:21,030 --> 00:02:22,070 you're connected to on LinkedIn 66 00:02:22,070 --> 00:02:24,030 makes LinkedIn more valuable. 67 00:02:24,030 --> 00:02:26,070 And so this idea of how do you get adoption 68 00:02:26,070 --> 00:02:29,060 to work in a way that makes your product more valuable 69 00:02:29,060 --> 00:02:33,010 to your early customers, which will then cause it 70 00:02:33,010 --> 00:02:36,020 to get you other customers, is a key part 71 00:02:36,020 --> 00:02:38,040 of that opportunity that you're creating. 72 00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:40,070 Products that stand alone and sit separate 73 00:02:40,070 --> 00:02:44,030 from everything else, interesting but not that useful. 74 00:02:44,030 --> 00:02:46,050 Products that connect to lots of other people 75 00:02:46,050 --> 00:02:51,000 through the actual use of the product is very powerful.