I had an interesting conversation with the founders of Billmonk and SeattleTechStartups.com a few days ago about which tech startups have crossed the threshold to being mainstream. This whole area came to my attention when my Grandfather-in-law called me up one day to say “I’ve lost Gmail, how do I find it?”
It took me a second or two to determine exactly what he meant. That got me to thinking about how we in the tech community do tend to lose sight of the mainstream market. I would define mainstream as have a broad user/customer base across age ranges and demographics. You have also reached the mainstream audience when individuals such as my Grandfather-in-law access your site and use it without blinking an eye.
We were able to come up with a list of companies that we would consider mainstream:
My Grandfather-in-law knows of these companies and has even used them in the past. So, what does this mean for tech startups? You can create a niche company (similar to the nPost startup job board) that targets a niche group and be successful, but you will need to target the mainstream audience if you want to be a billion dollar plus company.
A few questions we came up with:
What does it take to reach the mainstream audience?
Based on the five examples above, I would say that your startup has to have a broad appeal to capture a large market. Interestingly, this is counter to what I normally counsel startups… I usually encourage startups to focus on a specific niche, area or market. It is easier to create a user/customer base and allows for a more efficient way to test your concept.
Moving forward, I will encourage companies that do want to get to scale to launch with a specific focus, but then to leverage success they have within their niche to expand to other areas as well.
It will also help, if you are focused on entertainment or broad product appeal. Three out of the four are focused on these areas and I would even say that Google approaches being within the entertainment realm. Also, the companies were extremely innovative when they launched. AOL in bringing people online for the first time in an easy to understand way, Google for refocusing and simplifying the search process, Amazon for selling everything possible online, and YouTube for launching consumer video.
Is the mainstream audience ready for tech companies?
Overall, I would say no. Which means that tech companies have to build their products targeted to the mainstream. When my Grandfather-in-law can’t “find” Gmail, there is a problem in the system, whether it be connecting online (or even having to connect each time as he uses a dial-up), to understanding how to navigate, or access signin requirements. None of these are 100% intuitive to users. For instance, how many times have you browsed a site looking for a specific action or function and been completely unable to find it? I would guess that it happens pretty frequently.
How do you design for the mainstream audience? I HAVE NO IDEA. However, I would encourage each company to test, test, test to see what works well and has the best conversion for a specific goal. Once the optimal system is in place, then test, test, test again. Ease of use is difficult, counter intuitive and tricky to nail down correctly. We have made nPost as simple as we can at this point, but we have a lot farther to go. Also, we do have some leeway as we are specifically going after the tech startup community, and luckily they are pretty tech savvy.
Should companies even go after the mainstream audience?
Yes and no. If you want to grow your company to a billion dollar company, then you will have to get to go mainstream. That being said, your strategy should be to focus on one unique group as Amazon did with books, eBay did with collectibles, and YouTube did with video clips. Google focused solely on searches and expanded from there into services, advertising, and much more. The companies all proved their concept with one key product or service and leveraged that success to much larger more encompassing business models.
Back to finding Gmail. The ultimate test is if my Grandfather-in-law doesn’t have to ask, “how do I find/use _____” then you have done it! Get ready to sell for the company for billions!
Note: The above list is not all inclusive and there are a few others that I suspect have reached the mainstream, but I don’t have any data to prove or disprove my hypothesis, so we won’t add them until we do. Also, there are a number of companies that have an extremely large user base, but who are not mainstream.
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