Written on February 15, 2012
Throughout the years I've had the chance to speak to and consult a vast number of businesses and organization. During this time, I've always had the buzzing question in the back of my mind — "What makes some services and products more successful than others?".
I’ve grown to think that the most successful products and services are always born out of necessity to serve the society— being it a commercial endeavor or a humanitarian one.
Taking successful social movements as an example, one notices that they didn’t happen because they were cool or based on extensive market research. Also, no successful movement was launched as a MVP (minimum viable product). Groups of people did not test out the revolution beforehand. It was out of necessity that these campaigns took place.
On the other hand, global successful online products such as Facebook and Google, did happen out of necessity. Zuckerberg & Co. set-out to build an innovative database for their student body, which proved to be a necessity based on its constant user-base increase. As for Google, millions of websites needed to be indexed and searched for afterwards— another undeniable necessity.
Yes, the process may be fun and exotic, but without the necessity element sprinkled all over it, chances for success are minimal.
With all that said— on your next product design/launch — try answering the obvious question — “Is it necessary?” — This is valid for any business, service, product, or movement. If it is born out of necessity, chances are that THING has a MVC (maximum viable chance) of seeing the bright light-of-day.