Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Alyssa Royse

I love a good catch-phrase. A good mantra can rock my world.And oh daddy, the hard smack of a good platitude knocks me off my ass likenothing else. Mostly, however, I love them like I love Beevis and Butthead. Ilove them because they remind me how stupid most people are. For a few moments,I can revel in my own intellectual superiority, confident in my belief thatit’s not the meek who will inherit the earth, but the innovative brainiacs likeme who are going to forge new markets – no, whole new lifestyles – into whichthe unwashed masses will pour, bathing in the glow of innovation that changesthe course of humanity.

Wanna buy a bridge?

One of the problems with entrepreneurs – especially those ofthe tech-geeky ilk – is that our vision is so clear, conviction so strong andenthusiasm so infectious that we lose touch with reality. We make it worse bycheering ourselves on with phrases like “first to market,” “paradigm-shifting,”“proprietary IP,” and “disruptive technology.” We forget that, no matter howcool our offering is, we still have to convince people to buy it. And in mostcases, that first means convincing them that they need it. Which first meansconvincing them they have a problem that we can fix…  And so on.

Let’s take a quick look at some of our most belovedcatch-phrases. Specifically, the ones I see in every single Power Point pitchdeck, usually right before the slide with the hockey stick graph showing yourcompany in the upper right hand corner of some statistically relevantcollection of competitive data.

First To Market

This is a HUGE red flag for me. There are only a handful ofreasons why it would be good to be first to market, most of them involveprofoundly and simply changing the way that everyone in the known universe doesONE thing that they all do already. Like Amazon.com and shopping. And it’sworth pointing out that Amazon didn’t have to convince people that they shouldshop, they were already doing that.

You have to define and build a market for your product. Thatmeans a lot of marketing to educate consumers about why they need a productlike yours, not even specifically about your product. You have to make a lot ofguesses – however well researched – about how people will use your product. Youhave to support a very long runway to while you research and build your marketAND your product. You will go into revision the moment you launch as a resultof market feedback, meaning you are probably launching two products in rapid succession,not one.

Your competition – and you WILL have some, no matter what –will reap the rewards of all of the market education and definition that youdid, get to market much faster because you will have done all the dirty workfor them, benefit from all the mistakes you made, and will be able to release a“better” version than yours – probably faster than you can get out your version2.

Most importantly, you will only really have access to theearly adopters, which is always a very small portion of the larger market thatyou probably did your financial modeling based on. Basic laws (and I’ve rarelyseen them bent) of the Diffusion of Innovations theory suggests that the bellcurve for consumers of paradigm-shifting, disruptive technology is as follows:
 
Innovators: 2.5% of market
Early Adopters: 13.5%
Early Majority: 34%
Late Majority: 34%
Laggards: 16%

So, first to market gets you 15% at incredible cost aneffort. Best to market gets you 85%, and you can let the first to market peopledo most of your R & D.  

Paradigm-Shifting

People like their paradigms, and they don’t want strangersto shift them. It may be easy for you to see how the world would be better ifpeople would shift their paradigms, that doesn’t mean they will do it. The “mybusiness will succeed, if only the market will change,” doesn’t work any betterthan, “this will be the best marriage ever, if only he will change.” Can I justsay, “Earth Class Mail” and rest my case? (You know, because people will wantstrangers opening all their mail for them.)

The upside? Probably not tons of existing competition interms of other products. The downside, tons of competition in terms of habitand closed minds.

Do not build a business plan on the idea that you will get ahuge mass of people to change their behavior. People still smoke cigarettes,and that behavior kills them. So what’s their motivation to change theirbehavior for you?

Disruptive Technology

That is code for “confusing.”  Similar to paradigm-shifting, the idea here is that peoplewho are already doing something will now do it a different way because of yourproduct. Sure, you don’t have to convince them to do something, but you stillhave to convince them to do it differently. And you will be battlingestablished brands, methods and products who will fight you tooth and nail toretain their existing customers.

Proprietary IP

This is probably my favorite catch phrase in all decks.Translation: I have an idea. So what. I have billions of them. We all do. Manyof us – at least the entrepreneurs I hang and drink too much with – have adozen ideas a day, sometimes at very inopportune moments. (Oh honey, no, thatfeels good, I’m just distracted because I realized that if I could….. )  Ideas are awesome, innovation is thebest drug and the only path to the future. However, if you can’t get it tomarket, with the right team, it doesn’t mean anything. You can’t build abusiness on an idea, you can only build it on a market, a team, and a ton ofblood, sweat and tears.

Maybe I’m cynical. (Ya think?) In the year since being firstto market with the first all-digital national lifestyle magazine, I’ve beenkicked around hard by the harsh reality that paradigms don’t shift any fasterthan markets, disruptive technology scares the shit out of people and myintellectual property isn’t worth a thing if there isn’t a market that is readyand willing to pay for it. As a good entrepreneur, I still know that I am rightand will keep working at it until I stop breathing, but I’m not going to getall excited every time the whiff of change blows past my lonely station at theFirst To Market outpost in hell.

My addressable market is huge, my product is awesome and itis, without a doubt the wave of the future for publishing. With 50,000 readers,I’m hacking away at the innovators and early-adopters (and am actually a prettybig magazine.) But, on a daily basis, I am still forced to answer the question,“what is a digital magazine.” Can you imagine trying to sell a car to peoplewho didn’t know what a car was, how they would use it or why it was any betterthan a horse? (Especially if you are understaffed and underfunded, like most of us are!)

Which is why I didn’t buy an iPad, even though JUST CAUSE isavailable on it, for free using the Zinio reader app. I just can’t get excited about the iPad as a marketbecause it is based on disruptive technology, and I believe that it will takeyears – YEARS – before a critical mass of people begin using it. Obviously, theiPad will not be a viable third-party distribution platform for any mediapartner until that happens.  ForApple, and even for Apple app developers, the big test is simply, “will peoplebuy it?” That’s easy. For the rest of us – and for people who want it to changethe world – the larger question is “how will people use it?”  Followed closely with the mostimportant question, “will this become a lifestyle?”  Will an ecosystem of goods and services grow in it?

In agonizing over whether or not to spend money I don’t haveon a gadget I don’t really want in order to see how JUST CAUSE works on it, Ifound the words of wisdom that forever soothed whatever buzz of excitement Ihad. Cory Doctrow, of Boing Boing fame, said in a Gizmodo post: “The real issueisn’t the capabilities of the piece of plastic you unwrap today, but thetechnical and social infrastructure that accompanies it.”

And therein lies the rub for all of us innovators. We canhave great ideas, create amazing products, and have the potential to change theworld, but none of it matters unless the world changes with us.

So should we do it? Well jeesh, we have to. Just as sure asTiger needs to putt and text, we need to make products and companies. It’s fun,and yes, it’s necessary. We create the future, fuel the economy and sometimeschange the world. I wouldn’t want to do anything else.  And I wouldn’t want you to either! Gofor it, with everything you’ve got. You’re probably going to fail – the oddsreally are not in your favor. But go! Fail, and fail HUGE! Try everything,learn everything, and then do it again!

But be clear. Your biggest challenge is not your product, itis the people who you need to buy it. Without them, you just have an idea, andthat’s not worth a damned thing.

__

Alyssa Royse is still planning to change the publishingindustry by creating a national magazine dedicated to ideas of positive changein the world. She’d love to see it on the iPad, so if you have one and want tolet her play with it, she’ll totally let you buy her a drink. Her next startup(yes, again) is also first to market and paradigm shifting, but it uses oldtechnology, and just gets people to do something they already do, but better.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.