4.1. Where is the gap?

“Is there a market?”,“how big is the market?” is a startup existence mantra that resonates like the sword of Damocles. When identifying a demand craze, what are the right questions to ask? The art of approaching the market is as important as a hopeful traction it may have on all competitors.

4.1.2. Apple

Postulate: customers don’t anticipate what technology can do. Even if they sometimes could.

Apple shows no interest in traditional detailed market analysis, and only considers global market size and product type renewal rhythm.

Remain focused. Concentrate on Premium offering, leave the rest to the competitors, which will fight to the death in a race to the bottom.

Reinvent an existing concept. Make the best product.

4.2. Amplifying the gap and progressing

Saturation-driven companies lose their DNA: they want to be hegemonic, hence sacrifice part of their soul to “external” aspirations.

Apple’s genetics lies in striking unexpected products seemingly out of the blue. As long as this is maintained, they remain aligned with their root gene.

Certainly, considering that the competitive race may not be a problem – as long as the product is attractive enough – requires courage and absence of fear. It is fear that calls for piling up reports. After all, aren’t market studies sort of reports? Guess where do reports end up, usually? Using a report is like using snapshot photography to capture full high speed motion. The shielding from studies analyzing markets isn’t a protection for any market warrior.

Courage is often assimilated to risk. And the expectation of risk entails fear. Locking the company in a deadly treadmill isn’t any entrepreneurs wish.

Take a different view. Shift your angle.

You can’t do everything: do one thing and do it well. Even if this means turning your back on competition.

Listening to others will certainly inform you, in the same way as listening to all radio or TV channels will not inform you any more (let alone any better) – you get a lot of noise. You even mime noise. And this becomes costly to get rid of. The more you listen to the noises, the more you tend to add features to your products. They become heavy and unsound at best, irrelevant at worst. You end up being a me-too clone.

The best product doesn’t mean the most complicated, the richest in features, or the most technologically advanced. Marketing practice has shown this for a long time. “Best” means a combination of product quality, timing and irresistible appeal. Market analysis may have shown that there is “no visible market” or “no market traction”, but sex appeal triggers the “boom”.

Begin by simplifying product range down to the minimum. This will bear the virtue to focus on design effort; it will maximize economies of scale; and, by the way, it will simplify logistics too.

Now, the question is how do you do this? First, it’s by saying “no” to everything which isn’t essential. In this way, you begin to focus on the kernel axis that carries only the key aspects. An example is the long list of functions for future products: you have got to rank them and set things to the top for the most important ones. Customers may not help much here: they just can’t extract the quintessence of the products they’re using, they see the variety, they like it, and that just comfort them. You’re better off relying on deep intuition.

Practice lateral thinking. See the rabbit in the chest full of nuts. Can you see a portable office in a telephone? iPhone! Can you see a downloadable song in a music disk? iTunes! By authoring a new category of products aligned with latent demand, and positioning it to the top, you’ll let many others enter the game, but at lower positions, where the fight is the fiercest.

In Spring 2011, soon after the iPhone and the iPad introduction generated hysteria, competitors announced “soon to come” vaporware products. It took time to see the promise of serious competition to control market share, but they never reached profits share.